Path: utzoo!telly!ziebmef!ncrcan!lsuc!nrcaer!cognos!jimp
From: jimp@cognos.uucp (Jim Patterson)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Bank obnoxiousness, tax woes
Message-ID: <5794@aldebaran.UUCP>
Date: 4 Apr 89 15:27:33 GMT
References: <145@sickkids.UUCP> <5723@aldebaran.UUCP> <1989Mar30.230601.4162@lsuc.uucp>
Reply-To: jimp@cognos.UUCP (Jim Patterson)
Distribution: can
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 36

In article <1989Mar30.230601.4162@lsuc.uucp> dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman) writes:
>In article <5723@aldebaran.UUCP> jimp@cognos.UUCP (Jim Patterson) writes:
>> ... but I do know that it's pretty unreasonable to
>>expect taxpayers to calculate it themselves.
>
>Nonsense.  You have a passbook, don't you?  Or monthly statements?

I'll explain this admittedly knee-jerk response. In general, I have no
complaint about doing a bit of work to pay my income tax. In this case
though I see one standard for the banks and another for the taxpayer,
and that's what I think is unreasonable.

I'm assuming that the bank has an obligation to send out T5 returns
for interest earned on accounts above some threshold. So, there is
apparently an arrangement or legislated allowance that banks don't
have to send out declarations of earned interest below some minimum
value, yet there is no longer such an allowance that individual
taxpayers can omit declaring "trivial" amounts of interest.  (This is
all conjecture, as I'm no expert; if you can clarify the legislation,
please do).  Disregarding the legalities (which I don't dispute), it
doesn't strike me as fair that the banks should be allowed to
disregard "trivial" amounts of interest, yet the individual taxpayer
isn't so permitted.

No doubt, the accumulated cost of sending out interest slips for
all of these small accounts is staggering. However, it's all relative;
the total interest earned on these accounts must be many times as much.
I see this particular exception as just one more case where the
Federal Government has taken the side of Business rather than the
average citizen. Admittedly, it's a trivial issue, but from my 
perspective it seems to be part of a trend.
-- 
Jim Patterson                              Cognos Incorporated
UUCP:decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!jimp P.O. BOX 9707    
PHONE:(613)738-1440                        3755 Riverside Drive
                                           Ottawa, Ont  K1G 3Z4