Tax Tale of the Week: Confidentially Speaking – the Arthur Vaile Story $
Alan Baggett
Young, Randy Reynolds, Bill Kilner, Juri Merelaid et al (The PM03
Unit).
Now for those of you who do not know Arthur Vaile was a well respected
investor and investment advisor who was primarily known for his
nightly business reports on CTV before his unfortunate passing. By all
accounts Mr. Vaile was a great guy and a class act all around. This is
his tax story.
My knowledge of Arthur Vaile's alleged situation came about when a
fellow tax employee asked me where I got my investment advice and I
named a couple of sources, one of which was Mr. Vaile's CTV reports.
Some of the guys in the PM03 unit overheard me mention his name and
quickly alleged that 'that Vaile guy once had a tax debt of over
$300,000'. Now $300K is a lot of dough and my eyebrows arched upwards
in surprise. (After it was also alleged to me that Brian Costello had
tax problems, and Jerry White etc. etc. and that such was not uncommon
in the financial advice community. But those are tales for other
weeks.)
'Really, ' I replied. 'Yeah, ' they said. 'He tried every trick in the
book to get out of paying. Requesting adjustments, filing appeals but
we finally nailed him. He was good about it though and he eventually
paid the whole thing in full. Though it took several years' I should
point out here that Mr. Vaile was not purposely trying to shortchange
the feds it's just that people have different interpretations about
income and deductions and Mr. Vaile took a chance, rolled the die and
lost. Happens all the time.
So what's the point of this story then? Well I did not work Arthur
Vaile's alleged tax case so I should not have any knowledge of it.
None at all. Should I? In theory your tax information is for your eyes
only (great movie by the way) and for those few who work your tax
case. No one else. Unless you give your permission (like your
accountant or lawyer). But in actual fact that is not the case.
Revenue Canada and the CCRA often say things like ' You have the right
to expect privacy and confidentiality' and ' the CCRA, protects the
confidentiality of client information' and ' only those CCRA employees
who are authorized by law and require the information to administer
their programs and legislation have the right to access your personal
and financial information'.
But it is just not true.
They are just 'buzz phrases' used to placate the Canadian public. In
reality such is not practiced. Not in the least little way. If they
were you would not be reading about the alleged tax problems of John
Snoblen, Salome Bey, Steve Stavro and this week Arthur Vaile among the
many others discussed so far. And still to be discussed.
And if you doubt me please please remember that next week it could be
your name here.
Coming Attractions: What happens when a tax collector is subjected to
a statutory set-off (a garnishment)? Tune in next week and find out.
Paul Moore
"Alan Baggett" <alan.b...@stribmail.com> wrote in message
news:8998c724.03061...@posting.google.com...
> So what's the point of this story then? Well I did not work
Arthur
> Vaile's alleged tax case so I should not have any knowledge of
it.
> None at all. Should I? In theory your tax information is for
your eyes
> only (great movie by the way) and for those few who work your
tax
> case. No one else. Unless you give your permission (like your
> accountant or lawyer). But in actual fact that is not the case.
> Revenue Canada and the CCRA often say things like ' You have
the right
> to expect privacy and confidentiality' and ' the CCRA, protects
the
> confidentiality of client information' and ' only those CCRA
employees
> who are authorized by law and require the information to
administer
> their programs and legislation have the right to access your
personal
> and financial information'.
>
> But it is just not true.
Are you suggesting people who work at CCRA are human beings? Wow.
What a concept.
Yes, people in small groups sometimes discuss situations which
involve clients, esp notorious clients.
Cops, lawyers, accountants, doctors, nurses, architects, shoe
salesmen, hotel maids, and lots of other people gossip a little
about the celebrities they very occasionally run across (of
course, not many people get on the internet to yell it out to the
world). That's life, and it's almost impossible to stop. CCRA
does, of course, officially discourage that sort of thing. All
kinds of people can access your files via computer, for example,
but Internal Audit runs a lot of scans of what people are
accessing, often keeping an eyes on tax records of the rich and
famous, and more than a few PMs have found themselves looking for
work after an unauthorized access of someone's tax files.
The odds of someone _wanting_ to access the tax files of some
nobody, risking their job to do so, are, of course, very small
Those who have the access are busy working on people's tax cases,
so why on Earth would they want to snoop in someone else's tax
files? Especially at the risk of their job?
> They are just 'buzz phrases' used to placate the Canadian
public. In
> reality such is not practiced. Not in the least little way.
Mmmm, curious people who got caught accessing the tax records of
Wayne Gretzky and Jean Chretien and were subsequently fired might
disagree.