Computer Foul-up Breaks Canadian Tax Filing System

CokeJunky writes "During a weekend maintenance window, the Canada Revenue Agency (Fills the same role as the IRS south of the border) experienced data corruption issues in the tax databases. As a precaution, they have disabled all electronic filling services, and paper based returns will be stacking up in the mail room, as returns cannot be filed at all until the problem is fixed. Apparently on Monday they discovered tax fillings submitted electronically where the social insurance number, and the date of birth were swapped."

Re:CCRA

[rebel_cdn]

Actually, it used to be Revenue Canada. Then they combined it with Canada Customs to form the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA). Then they realized it didn't make much sense, and they were once again separated, so now we have the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

Re:DST patch broke CRA?

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Oops, forgot the URLy:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20070307.wtaxes0307/BNStory/Technology/home [theglobeandmail.com]

Adeptus

Re:Data Types

[CastrTroy]

There is major problems going from strings to dates. The system settings on windows affect all dates even when programming in .Net. So if you have one server set up with mm/dd/yyyy, and another set up as dd/mm/yyyy and convert a string to a date, you get different results. Myself, I always push for dates in the ISO standard format YYYY-MM-DD, which actually makes sense, as the units go from largest to smallest, and it makes the dates easily sortable. I've never understood either of the dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy formats. I always get them mixed up. Maybe i'll start writing time as mm:ss:hh and see if people can actually figure that one out.

Re:Poutine?

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Actually, it's a dish consisting of french fried topped with cheese curds and gravy, and quite tasty. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine [wikipedia.org]

Re:DST patch broke CRA?

[Anonymous Coward]

problematic Microsoft DST (daylight savings time) patches AFAIK, it was a DST related patch problem, but not Microsoft's. The CRA's tax systems are not on Microsoft Windows. It's all mainframe and SunOS based. (Disclaimer, I work at a department that has ties with CRA, but not at CRA.)

Re:What was the setup

[flyingfsck]

Most probably Oracle and MS 2003 servers. The Canadian gov is a total MS and Oracle shop.

Re:The CRA's IT Department

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to work at CRA in the IT department and there are several things you should know....

Yes, we still run Windows 2000 and indeed Office 2000. The reason CRA has not moved to XP is because CRA is waiting for Vista to stabilise and for Longhorn to be released (for common patches, "stability(for what that is worth)" etc) EVEN THOUGH CRA/CBSA has an enterprise licensing structure and XP is the same cost as 2000 per license, we are not ready for it yet. We run *hundreds* of applications for both CRA and CBSA and each of these need to be certified for use on the networks to ensure stability of the system, which, despite the beaurocracy, works surprisingly well....

PC's and laptops have indeed been asked to be left on so that the patch can be downloaded. We "push" the patch to the computer and no, they are secure because they are not logged onto the system AND the screensaver kicks in after 3 minutes of inactivity, and locks the machine. No logon credentials, no access to any system. Period. If the user was dumb enough to leave their computer logged on and they left it, they deserve to be chastised.

The issue with the computer systems is not Windows 2000 related. The problem with the DST patches is that it has knocked out some of our older Exchange servers. PC's and file servers are unaffected.

The problem that has been in the news lately is related to the MAINFRAME, which is certianly not Windows but some form of *nix. The problem resulted from updates for the current tax filing system and their related databases, and the problem has already been identified and is being resolved as we speak...No information has been lost that is already in the system...

Cheers!

Re:DST patch broke CRA?

[Run4yourlives]

Because the fucking Americans changed the damn time change dates and we were dumb enough to follow them.