Quebec is again following the very poor practice of advising Taxpayers of what they owe as balance of taxes (plus adding interest), even though payment was sent with the Income Tax Return or the balance paid at the bank on the due date.

The process calls for payments to be sent immediately to Treasury, while Tax Returns are sent to Assessment.  Then the returns get rapidly assessed electronically and the “You Are Owing” notice is generated shortly thereafter, requesting the amount supposedly outstanding.  The Quebec government believes that this is an efficient process considering the thousands of returns and cheques received every day.

We think that this is an unbelievable practice!  If any other business rewarded the Taxpayer for hours of efforts and costly compliance by firing out such a rude message, ignoring payment that was made, they would have been thrown out of business years ago.

We hope that the Quebec government will reconsider this practice.  In the meantime, we congratulate all Taxpayers for meeting their responsibilities, and recommend that you wait another month until Quebec confirms your payment has been received and interest penalty has been reversed.

We would appreciate if you could mail to us copies of any assessment and reassessment you receive, as Quebec will not send correspondence to a third party’s address.

We appreciate your understanding and are available to answer any questions.