Category Archives: Income Garnishment Canada

Dealing With A Wage Garnishment From CRA

When most companies or organisations want to take action against you, they will have to take you to court, but this is not the case when it comes to the CRA. They can take action without going through this process and the results of falling behind with your tax can lead to a variety of penalties. There can be a program put in place to allow you to pay, but often that option will not be given, and you will face a CRA tax garnishment.

There is no come back from this situation, as once the CRA tax garnishment is in place, you have to accept that there is going to be money taken from your salary weekly or monthly depending on how you are paid. Not only will you be unable to get them to stop taking the money, but they are unlikely to reduce the amount they take regardless of the situation it leaves you in. They will see that your debt to them over rides all others and the CRA tax garnishment of your wages will be in place until everything is paid off.

While you will struggle to get anywhere with your requests for reduced payments on your own, this does not mean that there is not a way to get help. There are companies who will know a great deal about the law and understand that there may be elements of the law that will work in your favor and allow you to have some relief from the financial burden you find yourself under.

When you consider that it is likely that the CRA will take 50% of your salary if you are working for someone else and it could be the lot if you are a sub-contractor. When you have a CRA tax garnishment your employer will be aware of it and apart from the fact that this will be embarrassing, it could also leave you in the position of having to accept unfavorable working conditions for a while as the employer knows you are in financial difficulty and not in a position to walk away.

It may seem that a CRA tax garnishment is the worst thing that can happen to you, but that is not always the case. They can freeze your bank account and then have any savings you have sent to them, or they could go as far as placing a lien on your property. A further worry is that fact that it is possible for more than one of the sanctions to be put into place.

If the bill is high enough they may decide that a CRA tax garnishment is not going to get them their money quickly enough and so do that in conjunction with one or both of the other two options. It is going to be to your advantage to employ a professional as soon as you become aware of a CRA garnishment, as the quicker they begin to help the quicker the nightmare ends.

Working out a Tax Payment Plan with CRA

If you are facing a tax audit or have a huge tax debt to settle with the CRA, you need professional help to work out a tax payment plan with CRA. Some people run into financial difficulties and do not put aside sufficient money to pay the year end taxes. They should be proactive and keep themselves ready to negotiate a tax payment plan with CRA.

In a situation where you are not able to set aside the money that you need to pay your tax bills, you have to remain calm and take help to work out a tax payment plan with CRA. You can do nothing at first but wait for the notice of assessment to arrive from the CRA in your mail.

You may then seek professional help to get in touch with the collection department and suggest a tax payment plan with CRA. The professional tax consultants then aim to build up a relationship with the collection agent of the CRA while handling the process of your tax audit.

You have to be honest enough with your tax consultant and apprise him or her of your actual tax situation. You cannot promise more than what you can muster. Once you work out a tax payment plan with CRA, you have to stick by it. If you default with that plan, immediate action can be taken against you by the CRA and they can freeze your bank accounts. The idea is to be truthful in working out a tax payment plan with CRA.

When you are trying to negotiate individual or corporate taxes, it is better to come up with a tax payment plan with CRA that gets them their tax dues within a period of six months. When this is the case, you will find that the CRA collection agencies would be quite patient with you.

If you are a director of a corporation and even if you are not active in that corporation, you could be held liable for the HST trust money and the payroll taxes. You could face serious penalties if you are failing in your job as a director while not making sure that the tax money is being remitted properly. It is always safer to consult professionals so that there is a tax payment plan with CRA.

When working out a tax payment plan with CRA, you have to be sure of the installments that you fix. These installments are those periodic tax payments that you have to settle to the CRA on fixed dates to cover your tax dues that you would have otherwise paid as a lump sum amount on 30^th April of the following year. Installments are never paid as an advance. They are settled throughout a calendar year in which you have earned your taxable income.

When working out a tax payment plan with CRA, you have the choice of three installment options. The first is a no-calculation option which may suit you if your income and deductions stay constant every year. The second is the `prior year’ option which may suit you if your current year’s income is similar to that of the previous year. The third is the `current year’ option which may suit you if your income and deductions are considerably different from the previous couple of years.

CRA Tax Problem Help in Toronto and Other Canadian Cities

Many people in Canada find themselves facing a tax debt that may become too big for them to handle when CRA knocks at their doors and starts giving them deadlines to work out payment plans. It is not an easy task to deal with a CRA collections officer who could be aggressive.

Seeking tax problem help in Toronto or other cities in Canada becomes an important in part of handling the CRA tax people. CRA will generally accept a payment schedule that may stretch up to a period of six months. In order to clear yourself of a tax mess, you require professional tax problem help in Toronto or other Canadian cities because you have to understand thoroughly about the options available to you and how best you can begin to protect yourself and your business assets.

You really need some tax problem help in Toronto or other cities for there are cases when CRA will refuse to negotiate a payment plan which was thought as reasonable by you. This is where professional help and tax problem help will come in.

For any business enterprise or an individual, taxes have become one of the most difficult areas. The world has changed drastically and indifferent accounting just cannot pass. Consequently, thousands of business owners across Canada find themselves right in the middle of heavy tax problems leading to tax liabilities and they seek out tax problem help in Toronto and many other cities in Canada.

An individual facing tax problems may have reached that stage because of not being aware of the possible problems. By seeking tax problem help in Toronto or other cities, he or she could begin to avoid those problems and resolve them so that operation is possible in a tax worry free world.

People tend to ignore the communications they receive from the CRA collection centres. This is because they may be scared of the results that are linked with the kinds of tax problems they may have or that they require more time to come up with the finances to pay off their tax debts. Not taking tax problem help may result in a collection action from the CRA. If you feel that there is a tax problem, then it is advisable that you seek representation and tax problem help as early as possible.

The routine kinds of collection action that you may seek tax problem help in Toronto or many other Canadian cities could be handling demand letters from the CRA, financial disclosure requests, CRA garnishment to your wages and bank accounts that could get frozen. There may be additional action such as garnishment notices that may be sent to the financial institutions that you deal with along with liens on your property.

So, if you land into trouble when resolving a tax debt problem with the CRA, you need to seek out tax problem help in Toronto or other Canadian cities. When you seek professional tax help, you may buy time with the CRA collection practices. If your problem is pegged to coming forward with a payment schedule or a plan, you may take tax problem help.

How the CRA Collections System works?

Since 1^st August, 2005, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been given the responsibility of the cra collections of tax debts which was previously being handles by the Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC). CRA collection has the accountability for tax debts that are due to HRSDC through student loans, employment insurance, old age security, employment programs and Canada Pension Plan.

When the tax assessment or a reassessment is not paid, the balances which are unpaid are drawn from the relevant accounting system and these balances turn into collection accounts. There is a distinct accounting system for each line of revenue. The lines of revenue are corporate tax, personal income tax, Goods and Services Tax (GST) and salary deductions by all employers.

CRA Collections Agency

CRA Collections agency has to recover the entire balance of tax debts or make arrangements through individual payment plans from defaulters to recover the tax debt within a specified period of time. Recourse to legal action is taken when the defaulters are not able to arrange the filing of their tax returns. The kind of legal actions that can apply include certification of the debt in federal courts, garnishing of wages and accounts receivables, placing a lien on the assets of the taxpayer, setting off the tax debt against other government payments and seizing the assets of the taxpayer.

CRA Collections Agency can also take the tax defaulters and debtors to court in order to collect the debt which has not been paid. The procedures used by CRA Collections agencies to collect the outstanding tax debt amounts could be a combination of both automated and manual intervention. The CRA collection procedures may involve sending computer-generated letters, making reminder telephone calls, organizing field visits by the agents and sending legal notices.

The CRA collection activities take place through the Revenue Enforcement Management Information Tracking System (REMITS). This is done through a national collection call centre in the capital city of Ottawa and at eight other locations that organize collection for personal tax and Goods & Services Tax. The mode of collection will be determined by CRA collection authorities depending on the complexity as well as the size of an account.

REMITS of CRA collections arranges letters to all the tax debtors and takes care of specified accounts for which prior arrangements have been made. The call centre of CRA collection is responsible for outbound calls principally to those tax debtors whose outstanding amounts are below a specified dollar limit. The call centre is equipped with a telephone calling system which enables it to dial out to taxpayers automatically. The national pools make these outbound calls not considering any specific geographic boundaries for both individual tax and the Goods & Services Tax below a specified dollar limit.

CRA collection pools also conduct restricted enforcement actions such as garnishing the wages or accounts receivables of the taxpayers. The Tax Service Offices handle the more complicated accounts and conduct a range of legal enforcement like the seizing of assets or placement of liens on the properties of the tax defaulters.

An Overview of a CRA Bank Freeze

Once a tax debt is established, the CRA can take legal action and certify that debt in federal courts. This will be done after several requests by phone and in writing to the taxpayer. If there is no tax payment plan proposed by the taxpayer, it will empower the CRA to attack your assets as lien against your tax debts. The seizing of your assets may begin with a CRA bank freeze.

When you open a bank account in Canada, you are asked to furnish a Social Insurance Number, confirming that you are a resident of Canada. This number is used as a database which the CRA taps into to determine the details of your bank and your accounts. The CRA also keeps this data through any cheques you may have sent to the agency towards tax payments in the past. People also sign up for reasons of tax refund deposits or social benefit payments. There are various ways that the Agency can use to find out methods of your bank details and affect a CRA bank freeze.

Once your tax arrears have been certified by the CRA, they have the full power to the funds you hold in your bank accounts. CRA sends a Third Party Requirement to Pay (RTP) letter to your assigned bank. Once the bank gets this letter, they have to surrender the money to the CRA as a requirement for the sum as indicated in the letter. Your bank account is free for you to use once the required amount is sent to the CRA by your bank and the CRA bank freeze is released.

If the balance in your bank account is less than the sum demanded in the letter, the bank has to forward the entire sum in the account as on the date it receives the RTP. All deposits made to your account after this date will be forwarded also to the CRA until the sum demanded is paid in full.

If the CRA is not aware of any other bank account of yours, that particular bank account will not be affected by the CRA bank freeze. If your bank account happens to be a joint account where another person is also operating at the same time, you still face a CRA bank freeze for that account and the bank will be forced to honour the demand as per the RTP. It is, therefore, not a good idea to have a joint cheque account in a bank for any mortgage or insurance deductions when you feel that there may be a risk of a CRA bank freeze.

The CRA is empowered to affect a CRA bank freeze only to those bank accounts that are pertaining to you. It cannot freeze the bank accounts of your spouse or any other relations. The use of a credit card that has been issued by your bank does not get affected by the CRA bank freeze because the card is actually issued on behalf of Visa, MasterCard or American Express. A bank account RTP is limited only to that bank account. In very rare cases where there is a huge amount of tax funds as default, there is a possibility that the CRA bank freeze may also spread to other credit lines of yours.