Nothing good ever comes in the mail.

Once upon a time, long, long ago... I was a good boy and filed my income tax return every year. Until one year, when I was about 18 or 19, I had a nice return of about $600 and life was good. That kinda "extra" cash goes a long way when you're still a teenager. I spent it over the next few months; overdue repairs to the old truck, a few new CDs, lots of coffee and cigarettes, you get the picture.
But life was not good, heartbreak was pending.
I had made a mistake. I can't remember what it was exactly. I forgot an entry, or misplaced a receipt, or didn't use a #2 pencil. Regardless, a few months after the money was gone I received a nice, thick, official looking letter, it looked a lot like the one that my return cheque had come in. It wasn't a cheque though, it was the government letting me know that a mistake had been found on my return, and I needed to send back almost $400. You can imagine my disappointment.
This put me off of the whole income tax return scene for a long time. I didn't file the next year, opting to throw all my relevant forms into a box and just put it off. With every year that went by after that, the box got fuller, and the project that would be filing it all in one go got larger and more daunting. Finally, just last year, I decided to bring the whole pile in to work, and give it to the accountant. He actually enjoys that crap. I paid him a small fee, and he assembled many years worth old T4s and RRSP slips into a whole pile of legible returns. I mailed them off and a few months later the cheques arrived, totaling almost 3K. I stuck it in the bank and sat on it for several months, not really knowing what to do with it, until it came time to buy the new car... and it made a really nice down payment.
Fast forward to yesterday. I stop and check the mail on the way home. There's a nice, thick, official looking letter. Apparently something was missed in my return, income from a job I had 4 years ago in Victoria was reported incorrectly, and the government wants $721 of my car's down payment back.
Income tax returns can kiss my ass.