How to get Transport to stop sending you bills for $55

[Jean-Pierre]

Anyone have any tips on this? The bills all the time are annoying and is bad for the environment yes? How can you make it stop?

[RVgrin]

Dear Mr. Minister,

Please cancel my pilot's license effective immediately.

Lots of Love,

Jean-Pierre

[Sidebar]

How can you make it stop?

Pay them?

[Lurch]

How can you make it stop?

Pay them?

I believe they're talking about the invoice you receive after every medical.

They only way I know of that would make them stop sending them is to stop getting a medical.

Otherwise if I think I know what you are asking, no I don't think they do electronic billing.

You could always phone them, I don't ever read the invoice but I would imagine there is a phone number on it somewhere.

Lurch

[Hedley]

You don't have to pay the $55. RevCan will take it off your next tax return. No interest is charged.

[co-joe]

Except once Accounts Recovery Corporation takes over you get full tax returns but the phone calls with no ring tone keep coming.

[ybwflyguy]

Just paid my debt off...got sick of the calls from collections. Does anyone know if the unpaid bills with a collection agency would effect your credit score?

[The Mole]

It doesn't really affect your credit score. but what it will show, is that you owe somebody 55$. A bank would just tell you to go pay it. To affect your credit score the lending institution has to be part of the credit bureau. Banks,credit card company, utilities. Company's that loan money, make up the credit bureau's. Collections agencies are not part of the credit bureau, because they don't lend money. Its worse for your credit score if you don't pay power bill in a timely fashion.

[KK7]

You don't have to pay the $55. RevCan will take it off your next tax return. No interest is charged.

This is what I used to do. But they have stopped forwarding the charge to CRA, and instead forward it to a collection agency. I don't know why, because they always got their money fast from my tax refund!

[Just another canuck]

In the time it took to raise this "issue", you could have paid your bill online.

[Lost Lake]

Maybe they should make this part of Ab Initio training. If you decide to pursue a pilot's license, every time you have a medical, you will get a bill in the mail for $55. Just might end the confusion and misunderstanding!!

[BingBong]

In the time it took to raise this "issue", you could have paid your bill online.

Ive been doing online billing with TC for the past 6 years. Pay online...print your invoice if you wish...it works great!

[SK_pile_it]

If it is to save the environment, then there is an option to do it electronically. They will just send you the recipt after it is paid, so that you may file it. I am sure if you check out the website or call up someone from that TC branch, they will tell you how to set up for electronic billing. Its been awhile, i cannot remember how i set it up.
If you are just tired of paying it, there are some aviation medical doctors out there that jack up their price to include the $55, so that you dont get billed. I dont know who does it but they are out there.
Hope this helps!

[co-joe]

In the time it took to raise this "issue", you could have paid your bill online.

In the time it took ARC to phone me 50 times TC could have sent me my damn AIP amendments like the $55 was supposed to pay for.

[North Shore]

^ Or at least change the format of the 'new' AIM so that you could download the amendments and read through them like before...

[burhead1]

Maybe they should make this part of Ab Initio training. If you decide to pursue a pilot's license, every time you have a medical, you will get a bill in the mail for $55. Just might end the confusion and misunderstanding!!

Good point, I know the first time i got one i thought, but i paid the doctor. then it hit me oh ya transport wants the money too

[fish4life]

I agree they should just make it part of the medical just make it a flat rate $55 medical TAX leave the paper work up to the doctor who does your 6minute $100 medical

[ywgflyboy]

Oh Transport. You pay $100 for your medical, the doc signs your book, and somehow Transport needs to charge a fee for doing something. Not so sure what it is.....

My other favorite part is how every invoice I get from them has "Final Notice" stamped on it, even though I never received the initial notice

Does anyone know if they hold your licenses if you don't pay? I didn't pay last year and like stated above, they just took is from my income tax refund (thanks rev can), but I have a PPC that should be in the works over there and I am starting to think I am not going to get my little sticker until I pay up.

[mike53]

Anyone have any tips on this? The bills all the time are annoying and is bad for the environment yes? How can you make it stop?

A bit of advice from an old guy.Grow up and start taking responsibility for your actions.Don't get me wrong when I was your age I had a glovebox full of parking tickets,thought I was pretty cool but it was just vain ego tripping.My guess is you ultimately hope to fly for some big carrier and have 200 to 300 people depending on your abilities.to get them through any emergencies.If you don't want to take responsibility for the little stuff now,I wouldn't want to be a passenger on that plane when things go wrong.Sorry to sound like your dad but not paying a $55 fee because you think your special just makes you look like a kid.Sorry.

[Hedley]

I will start paying the $55 when Transport starts sending me AIP amendments again.

When the $55 medical tax was instituted, Transport said it was to pay for AIP amendments. Fair enough.

Then, Transport decided to stop mailing out AIP amendments. That's ok. But for some reason, they "forgot" to stop charging the $55 tax.

Are you trying to tell me that Transport was lying to everyone when it publicly stated that the $55 tax was to pay for the AIP amendment mailings? I refuse to believe this - Transport would never lie to us.

[Brewguy]

... And when Income Tax was first introduced (in Canada), it was a "temporary measure" to help pay for the First World War. Time moves on, situations change, and governments don't stop charging a fee/tax once the original thing/reason for instituting that fee has stopped/been paid for.

[Pogo Guy]

Oh Transport. You pay $100 for your medical, the doc signs your book, and somehow Transport needs to charge a fee for doing something. Not so sure what it is.....

My other favorite part is how every invoice I get from them has "Final Notice" stamped on it, even though I never received the initial notice

Agree 100% - never even receive an initial invoice. To add to that, unless I am blind, nowhere on the sheet of paper does it say what the bill is even for! We all know the $55 is for the medical, but really?? not even the courtesy to write what we are paying for? just says give me money...

[Chris]

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/corporate-servi ... 06-356.htm

Small Excerpt from the above link....

Transport Canada (TC) issues private and commercial pilot licenses to individuals who have completed the required training and who have passed an initial medical evaluation. While the license is issued for an indefinite period, the pilot must maintain its currency by undergoing periodic medical evaluations at prescribed frequencies. The Recurring Pilot Fee (RPF) is applied each time a pilot passes the required medical assessment as evidenced by the issuance or endorsement of a medical certificate. The Department issues approximately 40,000 medical certificates annually and generates approximately $2.2M from the provision of this service.

In addition, while a policy has been issued, promoting the adoption of a risk management approach to the review of medical assessments, some regions continue to review a majority of these documents.

Compliance to Treasury Board (TB) policy has been achieved with respect to exclusion of the costs of publications and those related to Safety Programs. ATIP REMOVED

The RPF generates approximately $2.2M annually, which is vote netted to the Department, and is intended to recover the majority of the cost of processing medical certificates.

It is recognized that there are some structural and legal impediments to achieving greater efficiencies in the administration of the RPF, and any action taken must be balanced in terms of the modest amount of revenue generated from the fee.

The RPF continues to be characterized by a high volume of transactions requiring significant processing and collection effort to generate a relatively low volume of revenue. While the annual cost of administering the RPF has not been quantified, the necessity to compute, invoice and collect a high volume of low dollar value transactions is still disproportionately high compared to the amount of revenue generated. In particular, it was noted that the RPF comprises 73% of the approximately 107,000 customer accounts currently in Oracle 11i. In addition, this fee was responsible for 59% of the total invoices generated by the Department in 2004-05 but only generated 5% of the invoiced revenue.


Services Invoiced...........# of Invoices(2004/2005).......Invoiced Revenue(2004/05)
Recurring Pilot Fee.............. 40,360 (59%).........................$2.2M (5%)
Other............................... 28,620 (41%).........................$46.5M (95%)
Total................................ 68,980 (100%).......................$48.7M (100%)


Since interest is rarely charged on unpaid RPF accounts, as they do not individually meet the necessary dollar threshold established by departmental policy, there is little incentive for the pilots to settle their accounts in a timely fashion. In addition, their credit ratings are not affected by the non-payment of the RFP.

The RPF is based on costs that were not directly related to medical assessment and therefore not compliant with Treasury Board policy. Conversely, the RPF cost base excludes certain costs that could have been recovered in the fee.

• the TB policy on Cost Recovery and Charging requires a relationship between the fee charged and the cost of the goods or service rendered
• the cost base upon which the RPF fees are computed included certain elements (i.e. the cost of publications and aviation safety programs) that were not associated with the provision of this service
• the RPF was computed on a cost base established in 1995-96 and did not incorporate cost increases such as those associated with the transfer of Civil Aviation Medicine from Health Canada ($2M) and system capital costs and the increase in administration and system costs relating to the billing system revisions
• the RPF is not applied to certain categories of aviation personnel (Air Traffic Controllers and student pilots) who also require medical assessments to maintain their licensing privileges
• there are no mechanisms in place for making adjustments to the cost base where appropriate and ensuring that all applicable costs (i.e. systems costs) are being captured.

[Mr. X]

Just get the company to pay for it homies.