If the CRA misspells your name, be prepared for lots of red tape

financialpost.com:

One of the biggest threats facing the financial services industry is the risk of identity theft, which is the unauthorized use of your information by third parties who attempt to collect personal information about you, such as your name, date of birth, address, social insurance number and other details, for criminal purposes.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) takes the protection of taxpayer information “very seriously” and has put in place a variety of measures to identify suspicious activity involving taxpayer accounts.

I wonder, however, if the agency may have gone a bit overboard in its attempt to safeguard taxpayers’ confidential information, putting into place such strict rules and procedures that prevent its own staff from being able to make educated risk assessments when trying to resolve taxpayers’ concerns.

As an example, let me describe my ongoing attempt to fix a CRA typographical error that, as of the time of writing, has yet to be resolved.

My youngest son turned 18 in 2023. He filed his first income tax return for 2023 to report withdrawals from his registered education savings plan. Despite having had a social insurance number since shortly after birth, he was unable to register for the CRA My Account because, apparently, you need to file a tax return first before gaining access.

As a result, he couldn’t use AutoFill to complete his return, so his tax slips had to be manually entered into the tax software. The return was eventually assessed as filed with no balance owing.

But when a CRA notice of assessment was received and the necessary steps were taken to register him for the CRA My Account, the agency somehow misspelled his last name as “Golobek,” which is what appears both