Taxman 2021

Warning! For BC only, if on the BC Schedule 11 you double-click Unused from the past, looking for the carryforward from the past, the answer is not to be trusted. The 2020 program was not saving the BC provincial tuition carryforward, so double-clicking is a waste of time. You will have to open up the 2020 program and see what the carryforward on BC Schedule 11 really is.

I have changed the 2020 and 2021 programs, but that alone won't cure this problem. Here we have a problem with 2020 that doesn't affect 2020, but does affect 2021. This is an intergenerational trauma and, as we Canadians know, those guys are hard to solve. Luckily, this time we have a simple on cheap solution. All you have to do is re-visit the 2020 BC Schedule 11, then when you exit the problem is solved. Unfortunately for us humans, re-visiting the past only causes more trauma which can only be assuaged with great gobs of cash.

And if you didn't enter your BC tuition carryforward, it doesn't matter! CRA's computer doesn't care what you enter, it already knows the BC carryforward and it applies it whether you like it or not. It's not optional, so there's no need to change your return — CRA will do it for you.

You'll soon notice the sexy new look to Page 1. As I went through this year's return I could see by the changes how someone was tidying things up, giving a more overall consistent look to the forms, no detail too small (well done!). And CRA no longer has a preferred 'order of attachments'. Now you can staple the forms together any whichway, which is probably what you've always done. But that aside, things aren't getting any easier. The forms have ballooned in size and the rules are so voluminous they can't all fit in the guide. If you want to know how much to claim for an adoption, CRA tells you to go online. You have the government-given right to fill in your tax return with a pencil. But you better have high-speed internet if you want to know what to put down. If the tax laws are allowed to grow without limit, we'll be like the US. We are not free citizens if we live under a Damocles sword of horrendously complicated tax laws. What better way to nail someone you don't like. That's how they got Al Capone, that's how they'll get Trump.
But CRA's biggest sin is how they try to sell it. On the cover of last year's tax package was mom, dad and the daughter frolicking on the bed, smiling from ear to ear. Is this how our government sees us doing our taxes? Where is the frustration, the despair?
In 1972 I took off to see the world — half a century ago! And though it probably wrecked my chances of a cushy career, I'm glad I did it then. If I tried the same today I'd be kidnapped within a week. On one of Michael Palin's travel shows, when he and his team crossed North Africa, they needed an armed bodyguard. In 1972 I hitchhiked across North Africa all by my little self. It's a more desperate planet these days.
In that same year of 1972, a book called Limits to Growth came out. It was just a bunch of graphs plotting, into the future, population, pollution, resources, etc. Each graph showed a different possible scenario. I fixated on the population lines which, in all the graphs, start off rocketing up at a 45 degree angle and then they stop and start heading down. I reckoned that it would take a massive kill-off just to slow down those rising population lines. But to come to a dead stop! Who is going to bury all the bodies?
Just based on when the population lines stop going up, my guess was that we had until somewhere between 2035 to 2050. In 2020, replacing the predictions of the past with 50-years of actual data, the numbers were re-crunched. Since we've done diddly squat to save the planet, it'll be no surprise to you that we'll have societal collapse in 2040. Which shows we humans are clever enough to accurately predict the future, but not clever enough to stop that future from crushing us.
If two years ago someone told me that in 20 years it all hits the fan, I would have asked for the evidence. Well, I've seen enough evidence now. It won't all happen in one big bang. It'll be like how you go broke: slowly at first, then things speed up. And surely everyone can see how the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are picking up the pace. Especially in these crazy times with another surge in COVID and Russia threatening to take a country it doesn't want. Is everybody trying to spoil the Olympics for the Chinese Communist Party? The Opening Ceremony will entertain us with friendly frolicking folks. Nothing to fear here. A complete waste of money because there ain't no one buying that story.
I'm not scared what the future holds for me. I'm unlikely to live till 2040. (Which is good because I don't want to go to my daughter's funeral.) It's just that it's all so sad. Back in the 60's we hippies knew there were too many people, too much pollution and too few resources. In the intervening years, we've managed to slow down the pollution and we kept finding oil. So we stopped talking about the future. We forgot about our ever-growing human footprint.
When I dream of hiding from this frightening world, I dream of Tonga. They're part of the Commonwealth and they don't see you as just a walking dollar-bill. The outer islands were as close to a tropical paradise as I've ever seen. But they weren't much above sea level. The people of Tonga had nowhere to hide when they were rudely reminded that below the surface lies a sea of molten rock. No matter where we live, we should fear there's a tsunami coming with our names on it.