I worked as a GST auditor at Lethbrdige Tax Office. I have seen some other co-op students blog who worked for CRA at different tax offices, I noticed that their co-op program is different than what I had at Lethbridge Tax Office. Other tax offices tend to give students different responsibilities during their co-op term, whereas in Lethbridge Tax Office, I was strictly assigned for GST audits. This approach, in my opinion, has some positive and negative impacts. I read some proverb which goes on saying something like “Jack of all trades and master of none". So approach at Lethbridge Tax Office has been to not make us Jack of all trades but make us master of GST audits. After staying there for an year, I can safely say that I did some work there and was productive team member rather than trainee in different departments. Our training at the beginning of co-op term was also based on GST audits. I didn't get chance to work on Income Tax files, which is something I will miss as part of this learning experience.
I still have some audit files sitting at my desk which I will be striving to finish before end of this month. Most of the files are write up for my Medicine Hat field trips and couple of other regular desk audit files. I also finished my corporate finance course this summer and happy to have finished total 5 courses during this co-op term. It was very advantageous for me to get co-op in Lethbridge as I was also able to take some courses which at least saved me a semester.
There will be two new students joining their co-op term starting this fall and I am sure they will have good experience and will get chance to learn lots of things during their work term. I have 3 more courses left and will be finishing my degree in this fall 2010 and I am very excited to apply my knowledge and skills acquired through this co-op to my new job.
By the way; here is some inside secret information about CRA. There is new simplified way of tax filing form coming very soon. You can download the form below and fill up and send to your designated tax office. Filing tax has never been so easy. :)
Disclamair: ( The above form is joke and is meant to have some good laugh. It is not real form)
Picture Source: http://geconsult.com/demo/Library/Docs/EzTaxForm.gif
