Is The CRA Fair in Applying Tax Law?

If you are to believe what the CRA says then you would believe that they are fair and solely concerned about having everyone file their taxes correctly.  You would also be led to believe that they will tell you when you have made a mistake regardless of whose favour it is in.  Well you would be wrong.  I have two clients that had errors made on their personal taxes (the errors were not made by the Accountables).  In both cases a single number was missed on a t-slip (just one number was not entered).  Guess what? Only one of the clients was notified about the mistake.  Let’s see if you can guess which client CRA contacted.
 
Client #1 reported all the income amounts from a t-slip, but missed out on reporting the tax that was deducted.  The tax deducted was around $13,000.  So this means that the client potentially owed another 13,000 in taxes or missed out on a potential refund. 
 
Client #2 reported almost all the income amounts from a T-slip, but missed out on reporting one number that was an income amount.  The amount missed was around $3,500.  So this means that the client potentially owed another 1,000 in taxes.
 
Based on the amounts involved you would think that either both would be treated the same, or that materiality (size of the amount) would come into play and cause the $13,000 to be noticed by the CRA and addressed.  Guess what?  The client with the $13,000 error in reporting taxes withheld still has not been notified.  Surprised?  I am not.  This is just confirmation that although we are led to believe that everything at the CRA is fair, it really is not.
 
I can give other examples of similar issues being treated differently by different staff or by different offices, but I don’t want to get actual people in trouble for being nice.  The point is this.  Don’t expect that the CRA are going to be fair or consistent. 
 
In the above 2 examples the CRA uses its computers to do what is called matching.  The system checks tax returns against the t-slips on file and checks to see if all amounts have been reported.  I have encountered this before for a myriad of reasons.  People don’t receive a slip because they have moved, or they misplace a slip and forget about it, but the CRA catches it and fixes everything.  Apparently the system must only be looking at income amounts, because otherwise an error of $13,000 should be easily caught.  Well that’s not true either, because I have seen errors caught where someone made a mistake and entered the taxes withheld as being higher than what was on the t-slip.  Surprisingly enough this error was caught and fixed almost immediately.  Funny how if the error is in the CRA’s favour they catch it, but if it’s in your favour they assume that there was no mistake.  I have also seen errors where more income was reported than what was on the slip.  Same thing, nothing is said by the CRA.  Where is the letter saying “We think you reported too much or paid too much tax”?  If you have ever received such a letter I would love to see it, because I believe it is like Bigfoot.  Everyone thinks it exists, but no one has ever seen it.
 
Since all good stories must have moral or lesson to be learned, the lesson from this story is be careful, be diligent, and always double check your work.  Everyone makes mistakes, but apparently the CRA thinks some mistakes are more important than others.