CRA can be backed off, but you have to know the game
CRA can be backed off, but you have to know the game. CRA is used to getting their way by knowing how to play the tax game.
The average small business does not know how the game is played.
If you don’t know you are in the game, you are going to lose by default.
Taxes are just a game and if you don’t have a game strategy, you will lose in just about any game that you play.
I have often received criticism that I call taxes a “Game.” But when you look at it the way things work, there is just cause to say that CRA plays a game with taxpayers. So, lets think about this.
What is a game? It is a competition with players, rules, and objectives. Usually in games they are played to win as big a win as you can.
The tax game puts Canadians playing against the Taxman. The Income Tax Act is the rule book and the judges are the referees. Lawyers, Accountants and Consultants are the coaches in how to play the game.
You can play the game to win without being a law breaker or a tax cheater. Dan White should be your coach of choice.
A good coach needs to know the most intimate of details about the player they are coaching, they need to know the rules and they need to know how to do audit ready bookkeeping because if you don’t have your game properly set up, you will lose.
CRA is not on your side! They are playing to win as big as they can and will do whatever they can to get your money.
CRA can and does play dirty. So knowing the law is not enough. You have to know your opponent inside and out.
You need to know your opponents weaknesses and how to exploit them. When you are playing the Tax Game you better have a coach who will get down in the trenches with you and fight it out doing whatever it takes to win the game.
You want a coach to me more than a mouth piece; you want one who will play your role for you. By signing a representative consent form, you can take a sideline and become a game watcher. If you hire the proper representative, you just don’t have your representative playing for you, you have their whole team.
CRA has a “Team Leader” and a good consultant is your own “Team Leader.” I have taken this role for very many clients and I can tell you it is nice to be backed up with the right players.