If CRA misspells your name be prepared for a lot of red tape

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One of the biggest threats facing the financial services industry is the risk of identity theft, which is the unauthorized use of your information by third parties who attempt to collect personal information about you, such as your name, date of birth, address, social insurance number and other details, for criminal purposes.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) takes the protection of taxpayer information “very seriously” and has put in place a variety of measures to identify suspicious activity involving taxpayer accounts.

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I wonder, however, if the agency may have gone a bit overboard in its attempt to safeguard taxpayers’ confidential information, putting into place such strict rules and procedures that prevent its own staff from being able to make educated risk assessments when trying to resolve taxpayers’ concerns.

As an example, let me describe my ongoing attempt to fix a CRA typographical error that, as of the time of writing, has yet to be resolved.

My youngest son turned 18 in 2023. He filed his first income tax return for 2023 to report withdrawals from his registered education savings plan. Despite having had a social insurance number since shortly after birth, he was unable to register for the CRA My Account because, apparently, you need to file a tax return first before gaining access.

As a result, he couldn’t use AutoFill to complete his return, so his tax slips had to be manually entered into the tax software. The return was eventually assessed as filed with no balance owing.

But when a CRA notice of assessment was received and the necessary steps were taken to register him for the CRA My Account, the agency somehow misspelled his last name as “Golobek,” which is what appears both online and on his printed notice of assessment. This is odd, considering that his name was correctly spelled on his social insurance card as well as on his first T1 tax return, which was prepared using certified tax software.

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Practically, it probably doesn’t matter that his surname is misspelled, but it seems like something that ought to be corrected at some point. This, as it turns out, is not an easy task.

As his accountant and authorized representative, I reached out to the CRA on his behalf by phone last week. I was told the wait time to speak to an agent would be between one and two hours. The good news was that rather than waiting on hold, I could choose to receive a callback when it was my turn, which I elected to do.

Unfortunately, that call came while I was in a meeting so I couldn’t answer it. I had to start again, so after my meeting, around 3 p.m., I called the CRA and was informed that the wait time was approximately two hours. Asked if I wanted a callback, I selected yes, but this time I was met with a new message saying a callback was no longer an option that day, presumably because the two-hour window would stretch past the 5 p.m. closing time of the CRA call centre. I gave up and decided to try again another day.

On Monday morning, fresh with new resolve, I called the CRA back and the recorded message I received was that the wait time was “under one hour.” I was ecstatic. But my joy didn’t last very long as I didn’t get the callback option and I was unwilling to remain on hold while listening to music for an hour. I called back later on Monday afternoon, and this time I got the message that I could receive a callback in “one to two hours.” Perfect.

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Sure enough, just before the two-hour mark, I got my callback. The CRA agent was very friendly, polite and understood the issue right away. He confirmed I was the authorized representative on my son’s tax account. He had me verify my son’s identity via his full name (misspelling and all), address, date of birth, social insurance number and Line 15000 of his return. I was then informed that despite verifying all this data, I would need to be transferred to a higher-level agent since I was requesting a change of personal information.

After about 10 minutes, I spoke to another friendly agent, who asked for all the same information above to verify my son’s identity. But for an extra measure of security, she wanted to know the name of the issuer of one of my son’s T-slips. I had to go into a filing cabinet, pull out his tax folder and give her that information.

I was then informed that, unfortunately, she would be unable to process this typographical name change as I only had “second-level authorization.” To change his name, even to correct a typographical misspelling error the CRA made, I would need a higher level of authorization, namely, I would have to be my son’s legal representative.

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That takes things to a whole other level. You see, a legal representative is an individual (or organization) appointed by a legal document, such as being named guardian, trustee or committee by a court, named as the power of attorney or named in a representation agreement. Alas, given that my son just turned 18 and was a legal adult, I was none of the above.

The agent then asked if I could get my son on the phone, which I said I would do. Minutes later, I had joined all three of us on the call, but by this point, the CRA agent had disconnected herself and transferred the call to the automated customer satisfaction survey I had agreed to take when I first called. Rather than respond to the survey with my son on the line, I hung up and thought that perhaps my feedback should be shared more widely.

I’m sure we’ll get this fixed one day, but in the meantime, if you happen to come across an 18-year-old who looks a bit like me, but has the last name Golobek, you should know that we are indeed related.

Jamie Golombek, FCPA, FCA, CFP, CLU, TEP, is the managing director, Tax & Estate Planning with CIBC Private Wealth in Toronto. Jamie.Golombek@cibc.com.

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