All the humor of a lynch mob…
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s top tax collector had the citizens of Ottawa up in arms on Friday morning when he announced a plan to force them to file their taxes electronically if they wanted a refund before Christmas.
Revenue Minister John McCallum said on a local CBC radio show he was launching a pilot project in Ottawa called “E-file or Else,” with long delays and even a 5 percent surcharge for paper filers.
This prompted calls voicing outrage because some people do not have computers and in any case some had already filed their tax returns.
Before the early morning program went off the air, McCallum’s voice came on once more: “To all the taxpayers of Ottawa, April Fools’ Day.”
Another year the show had a minister proclaiming that the government was replacing the clock on Parliament’s Peace Tower — similar to the British Parliament’s Big Ben — with a digital version.