I need to vent.

Today I got scammed. It’s actually not that I got scammed on this day in particular. Today is nothing special in that regard. It’s just that I finally got slapped in the face with the douche baggery of the scam that has been playing out on me for years.

I am broke. I have been broke for a couple years now. This, one could say, is primarily my fault. As if not having money is a fault, but we will get further into that later. The point is, I don’t find a lot of joy or purpose in working a job for another person’s business. This trends to a fairly consistent job turnover in my life with a decent amount of joblessness inbetween things. I also spend a decent amount of time working on projects alone, or with friends, that do not make money for anyone, myself included.

For the last 8 months I have been working very consistently. As a butcher in a small city I learned some cool skills and furthered my involvement in the farming, hunting, and food focused community. This, I feel, made up for the fact that I was just scraping by the whole time. The truth is, my paycheques dissappeared into bills, rent, and groceries after one week, leaving me dead broke for the second week while I awaited my next payday. C’est la vie, I am healthy and well fed.

Unfortunately, la vie includes spectacles, clothing, shoes, and other miscellany that actually eat up a fair bit of money. Now, I don’t buy new things (glasses are an exception) and I am happy wearing old worn clothing, reclaiming damaged goods, scavanging building materials, etc. Even so, living spendthrift as I do, without a vehicle, without the vices that previously ate up my earnings (tobacco, booze, cannabis; in that order) I am unable to both buy the food I need and the things that give my life a modicum of comfort (glasses!).

Being at the end of my patience, I finally decided to dip into my tax returns. The last three years have built up out of both apathy and derision. The thought of submitting to bureaucratic paperwork turns my blood viscid. Being so far removed from the reality of individual human life, I cannot help but feel that the federal government has no place in my life at all - In a moment, some who read this may feels an overwhelming urge to shove some irony pie all up in my face. Just bear with me a couple paragraphs beyond that, if you will -. Regardless, they have a bunch of money that I rightfully, by their own determination, deserve returned to me. 

A handy - to some - side effect of spitefully ignoring my tax returns for three years was that the paperwork took on a life of it’s own. The growing dread of tackling it far outweighed the actually effort needed to do so. For this reason, as well as needing money here and now, I went to H&R Block to get a cash back tax return done up.

Day 1: After finally receiving my T4 from Coast Mountain Sports for work I did last year, I went on down to get my “cash back, fast!”. No dice. Though the tax deadline has passed, I guess people are still all about it right now. Made an appointment.

Day 2: Went in for my appointment. Everything is good. Going to get almost $2000 back. Wait, no. I need to get some letters from landlords saying I actually lived where I said I lived so that HRB can confidently give me the money I get from the northern living allowance program (irony! But fuck you. I want that money)

Day 3: Letters in. Tax man out. Come back on after the weekend.

Day 4: Everything is together. Tax dude found my T4E from the 5 months of Employment Insurance I received in 2012 (Irony #2) which I totally forgot about, since I never received that document. Come back at 4:30 to get my money.

Day 4 cont’d: Well, it looks like my 2012 tax return came back negative, because of my EI benefits for the first six months. So I actually owed money to the Canada Revenue Agency for 2012. Why about the rest of my tax returns? Well HRB does not do cash back on any return older than the current tax season. Well great!

So. Here I sit in the business that offers “cash back tax returns” unable to get any cash back on the returns I just went through over the previous week and a half. Since I am completely broke, I am unable to pay the fuckers for the privilege of filing the outstanding tax returns. Thanks for the false advertising you fucking douche bag scammy fuckers. Now, when I finally get some money to pay for some fucking groceries that I have been unable to purchase for the last week because I’m fucking dead broke, I will have to give it to you to file my fucking taxes for me, which I could have done myself for free. So the entire reason I am paying you is for your stupid fucking service of retrieving my T4E from 2012. Great. Fuck you. Go to hell. I am totally leaving a flaming bag of dog shit on your front door. I mean like, my girlfriend’s dog who eats paprika and dried lentils and half a bag of white flour, his shit. A big fucking bag of it. Bigger than the non existent bag of groceries I would have bought to make some dinner tonight bag of dog shit you fucking sleazy fucks.

Seriously. I don’t even know how much money I even owe them. They might have charged me 50 dollars an hour for all I know. I was just some desperate sonuvabitch with no money who believed their stupid fucking business actually fulfilled their obligation to perform the tasks they openly advertise on the radio. Fuck the fine print. Who, when they are desperate and down on their luck reads the fucking fine print, or shows the full level of caution proscribed by those devoid of trust in the people who work and live in their own town.

Fuck! Are we really supposed to just assume that every cooperative action performed requires a full legal contract documenting any potential scammy shit-fuckery-ness? God damnit!

Anyhow. This scam on the behalf of HRB pails in comparison to the scam perpetrated by the CRA. I mean who the fuck taxes the employment insurance payouts that people who are, you guessed it, unemployed and poor, payed for in the first place? So you’re going to tax my EI contributions, then tax me when I receive that very same money at a later date, and not provide inflation support or anything? Fuck you CRA. And fuck your irony.

In closing, I find myself not only scammed today, but for the duration of my involvement with the federal government. I have absolutely no faith in the system as it stands, and actually haven’t ever had faith in it to begin with. This experience has done nothing but expedite my ultimate abandonment of the federal system. I am not happily Canadian. Given the opportunity, I am choosing to disavow my citizenship. If it were possible, I would be a Yukoner only.