Canada life

 🚽 Off-topic about life in Canada 🚽

💼 For the past four months, I’ve been battling with the Canadian tax authorities. Here’s how it works: at first, they trust you and give you the tax refund you request. But a year later, you randomly get a notification to confirm all your income sources and other documents. But I’m the kind of person who doesn’t bother with keeping documents and paperwork – that’s all worldly stuff, not for artists. But here, it was a matter of life and death. I found out about my debt completely by accident, and every week it grew by a certain percentage just for non-payment. 🫶

Of course, I didn’t have the paperwork to prove anything, and I had already moved to a different city. The only way to communicate with all the authorities was through email.

Collecting everything took four months, and every time I sent documents, they asked for new ones. They even asked me to draw a plan of the room where I lived and calculate the area designated for work! 🍸 Throughout the process, all the tax office employees were extremely cold and soulless. Every call with them was a reason to feel disappointed in the world. 👋

The worst part was dealing with the internet company. It turns out they don’t keep information for more than a year. They archive it and, if needed, only send it by mail to the address where the service was provided, and each page costs $10. It felt like I’d gone back 30 years in time.

I had to track down who is renting my old apartment now and ask them to forward me those documents. Luckily, they were really nice people and sent them to me for free. Only now has Canada decided that I wasn’t lying and that my taxes were indeed calculated correctly. This process even frustrated my tax accountant 🚽.