Saturday, April 5, 2014

What's the point of filling our tax returns?

I mean, they already know all the info we give them anyway. My father makes the tax returns for everyone in my family, and he was off on mine by five dollars (I'll be sure to fire him for this unforgivable mistake). Something to do with tax credits for charitable donations AFAIK. The reason why I know this? Why, of course mail from the Canada Revenue Agency telling me we were five dollars off, of course!

So if they already know exactly how much we're supposed to give them or get from them, why in the world do we have to waste our time with this?

4 comments:

  1. Maybe they just like watching the peasants squirm...That or they want to be made aware if they should be getting MORE money from you (winning the lottery, discovering a gold mine, etc). Neither would surprise me...

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  2. If it's similar to the IRS, it's not that they know how much you owe but that they looked at things declared and your math and can figure where you're off. There's a reason why tax audits exist: if they knew how much you owed, an audit would be unnecessary. This issue was just an issue with itemized tax deductions. So the moral of the story is check your math.

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  3. In the states, we have to re-evaluate our assets and potential tax credits each year to determine what we either give or receive from the government. For example, if I were to buy a house sometime in this tax year, information would be required about that to determine what kind of credit I would get for being a homeowner (This is something I'm considering doing with my fiance in the near future because it wouldn't be that much more expensive to have a small house rather than an apartment, especially with the tax credit). I have a son, so each year I have to confirm our current family situation to determine if I get a credit for that, too.

    Some of that can just be chalked up to bureaucracy, though. Governments love their needless forms.

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  4. But I discovered that I can get bonuses by donating to schools! If they didn't force me to read everything and file a tax return, I wouldn't know this!

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