Quote :

"A B.C. taxpayer who fought the Canada Revenue Agency over a million-dollar tax bill he didn't owe — and won — .... Correspondence suggests Leroux's MP, Conservative Dick Harris, was assured three years ago by the minister responsible that the government was prepared to compensate Leroux for Canada Revenue Agency errors that cost Leroux his business and his home. That settlement has not materialized... Leroux said his tax troubles began in 1996, when an auditor from the tax agency showed up to look at the books. The auditor took Leroux's business receipts and other records, he said, then misplaced those records at the CRA office. "He told me someone had put them on the pile that was to be shredded," Leroux said. Without receipts to show his business expenses, numerous CRA audits over several years concluded Leroux owed almost $900,000 in personal income tax, plus over $100,000 in GST, including interest and penalties. In 2005, he took his case to the Tax Court of Canada, where the CRA gave up in a so-called consent to judgment, essentially admitting its mistake. That reduced Leroux's personal tax bill to zero and his GST bill to $20,000. Documents show that by 2006, Leroux was actually owed a $24,000 tax refund. Years before his case got to tax court, however, the CRA had obtained a writ of seizure and sale against Leroux's properties so it could move in and collect on his alleged tax debt, if necessary. Because its security was suddenly at risk, Leroux's main creditor — the Business Development Bank of Canada — demanded in 2001 that he pay back his very large business loan. That touched off a chain of events, Leroux said, that forced the sale — at reduced prices — of his business, his home and other assets, valued at approximately $4 million. Internal CRA emails written by assistant commissioner Rod Quiney in August 2006, obtained by Leroux under the federal access to information law, summarize the agency's position in his case: "I believe we have been very fair and have in all respects provided the appropriate respect for his position and appropriate redress [by cancelling the debt]," Quiney wrote. "No compensation will be paid," he concluded. "

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/04/22/bc-taxmistake.html

4/23/2009 2:26:19 PM

The IRS is starting to look kind of candy-assed by comparison, they better step up their game.

4/23/2009 2:44:14 PM

Quote :

"The auditor took Leroux's business receipts and other records, he said, then misplaced those records at the CRA office."

Sucks for him but what kind of company doesn't have backup copies of this sort of thing

4/23/2009 2:48:29 PM

He did, I suspect, that would probably be how he was later found to be owed $24k in tax court three years later.

4/23/2009 2:57:12 PM

I hope he never pays a dime in taxes again.

4/23/2009 4:00:36 PM

considering he lost his company and his property, what's left to tax?

4/23/2009 9:19:15 PM

Quote :

"considering he lost his company and his property, what's left to tax?"

Now my advice for those who die...
Declare the pennies on your eyes....

4/23/2009 10:42:10 PM