When people receive a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) after waiting for a tax refund, the last thing they expect to see is a letter saying they are dead, but that’s what happened to a New Brunswick man recently.
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Peter Harwerth of Campobello Island, N.B., said he had received a letter in the mail from the CRA a few days ago that he had been expecting for a few days. When he saw the letter, he noticed it was addressed to “Estate of the late Peter Harwerth.”
The obvious issue is that the 64-year-old is still alive.
“That kind of baffled us, we were shocked,” Harwerth told Global News. “We just couldn’t believe what we were looking at.”
When Harwerth and his wife opened the letter, he said it was a regular tax reassessment but the problem was the couple had not yet received their original assessment after the taxes were filed last year. He said their accountant had estimated Harwerth would receive a refund of about $1,100, but the assessment he received said he owed more than $500. The letter also informed him that he had already received the refund, even though he had not.
Harwerth’s wife was also due to receive a refund but had received nothing yet. She had also not received a letter asking her to pay back any money.
“When we called Revenue Canada, it turned out that both of our refund cheques had been cashed previously, only a few days after they had been issued,” Harwerth said.
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He said they are now expecting photocopies of the cashed cheques so they can verify that the signatures used were not, in fact, theirs.
Revenue Canada is now investigating the matter, Harwerth said. Once the denial is given by the couple regarding signatures on the cheque, the CRA will investigate the “trail of the money.”
“Where were these cheques cashed? Where did the money go? Hopefully, there will be a paper trail or electronic trail to follow this down to the end,” he said.
In terms of why the “estate of the late Peter Harwerth” received the letter, he said the government agency was unable to provide an explanation.
He said they told him it was a mistake in the system, but he said he’s confused about how it happened in the first place.
Harwerth also believes it may not be an isolated incident, and that he’s seen comments online about it happening to at least one other person.
Though “it’s quite a mystery,” the 64-year-old said he’s not mad at the CRA, though this is the first time he’s ever had anything like this happen to him.
“I wanted to make sure that if people have not received their refund cheques from Revenue Canada, there might be similar cases behind it,” he said. “I have a hard time to believe that this is the single standing case.”
Harwerth’s situation is not common but tax professional Ann LaFrance said receiving incorrect tax information of someone’s death is a mistake that can happen. However, she said there are ways to prevent it from happening.
“Make sure your name is spelled properly, make sure there’s not a wrong birthdate, make sure your children are on your file,” LaFrance said.
She told Global News that as a general rule, it’s good to make sure you know what you’re signing before you send your tax forms in.
In an email, the CRA said it updates deceased information to a person’s account when it receives confirmation of death from either another government department, lawyer, executor, representative, beneficiary or family member.
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“Despite safeguards to ensure accuracy of our files, occasionally information we receive is incorrect or misinterpreted, or human error can occur during the processing of a taxpayer’s information,” the statement reads. “Whenever there is any indication the information we have is incorrect, immediate steps are taken to correct our records.”
The steps, according to the statement, include ensuring those affected receive the benefits and credits they are entitled to.
It goes on to say between 2007 to 2013, of the 2.4 million deaths reported to the CRA, only 0.23 per cent were erroneously coded as deceased. Since then, measures have been taken to “minimize human errors” and rates have dropped. In 2015, it says dates of death “recorded in error” amounted to just 0.09 per cent of all reported deaths.
– With files from Andrew Cromwell, Global News
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