I Don't Think The Government Wants Me To Have a GST Number...

So I decided to finally just fill out the form and snail-mail it into the government. Filling out the form was very painless...good directions on which pieces to fill out for which aspect of a business account (GST, payroll, etc.) you were applying for.

But as seems to be the case with my government interactions lately, there of course is a snag: The form doesn't say WHERE I need to send this thing to. Ok, that's alright. I mean, maybe there are different offices or something. Luckily, they suggest to review "The Business Number and Your Canada Revenue Agency Accounts" brochure to get all the answers to any questions you might have.

Great...I download the pdf...and look...and look...no address. I search. No address. I HAVE NO F'N CLUE WHERE TO SEND THIS!!!

So let's recap:
- Tried unsuccessfully to enter my information through the government website THREE TIMES and was even told by tech support that they were sure it was working fine and to try again.
- Tried to call it in but wait times were UNREAL. Any time at a client's (which is where I am during the hours the gov's office is open) and am doing personal stuff, its time I'm not billing the client for...which means I'm losing money...which means phone calls are NOT an option.
- Tried to manually fill out a paper-based form and the wonderful government website couldn't tell me where to send the form to!

Luckily with a bit of snooping, I finally found this page which gives you a link to a listing of all the government tax offices accross Canada.

So what's the lesson in all of this kids? Don't wait until you hit your $30k to get your GST number. Get it right out of the gate. Sure you charge your clients GST up front, but you also get to write off your own GST on purchases for the company (or something like that...I still don't have my GST number so I'm not sure what the details are, but there's a benefit).

Now let's see how long before I actually get my number in the mail.

CC

Seriously...I just want a GST number...

So continues the ongoing saga that is me trying to get my GST number. Seriously, this *shouldn't* be this difficult.

I've tried again going through the Government of Canada's website. I was actually very optimistic this time around...until I clicked the Accept button and got "This application is temporarily unavailable". Really.

So then I decided to check out some other sites, like the Business Development Center, which is actually a private company that will, for a fee, register your GST number for you. But, it shouldn't be that complex of a process to warrant bringing in a third party.

So now I'm onto my last option which I think might be my best: fill out the form, and mail it in.

Ugh...this is SO FRUSTRATING...

Frustrations with Registerign for GST Number

I've been trying to register for a GST number since late 2007. You'd think it would be easy, but unforunately its not...at least if you go the website route.

I tried registering for my GST number online through the Government of Canada's website...at the end of it I got a blank page with the title of "Summary". Weird. Weeks went by and nobody contacted me (as I was told they would on the site). Finally I called. Guess what? They had *no* record of me in their system. I guess something had messed up.

I went through the process again, and received the same issue: blank summary screen at the end. I emailed their tech support explaining what had happened and that I was concerned that this might not have gone through. I was assured that it had and that someone would contact me.

It's been a few months. No contact. So I'm just going to call them instead and get this sorted out. This has been very annoying...it shouldn't be this hard.

For what its worth, the application they use is a Java applet, and I was accessing it with Firefox on my iMac...so some combination of those three is the issue I suppose.