Dear Mr. Clement,
I have just received one of your many flyers, coincidentally while preparing my mother’s tax return. If it were not for the availability of a turbo tax computer program I would not have been able to do so. Interestingly enough your recent flyer announces another tax benefit via a tax credit calculation for a Children’s Art Tax Credit.
I think the greatest failure of the federal government (one of many) is to have created a tax structure that makes it impossible for the average and indeed the above average to file one’s own personal tax return. What happened to the good old days when you listed your income, listed your deductions (personal) exemptions, children exemptions, etc., arrived at your taxable income, then went to a chart where your federal and provincial tax was listed, you then wrote these amounts on your return, deducted your tax payments and paid or applied for a refund for the difference.
With your never-ending tweaks to the tax laws (all intended to buy votes) you have made the system so complicated that those people who you are trying to help have to go to a professional tax preparer who not only charges for the service but then offers to give you your refund at a discounted rate.
To make matters worse I just mailed my mother’s tax return at a cost of two stamps plus an additional seven cents, all this because there are so many pages that have to be completed.
G.W. Gilley
Huntsville