To denounce the widening tax gap between the wealthiest and the less well-off, members of the tax collective Échec aux paradis rallied outside the offices of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in Montreal on Thursday morning.

The demonstrators wanted to use it as a reminder of the importance of “getting multinationals and big fortunes to pay their fair share” while various evasive maneuvers evade Canadian tax authorities an estimated $18.1 billion to $23.4 billion a year which was first reported in last year’s total federal tax gap report for the years 2014 through 2018.

An amount that could be even more astronomical if other elements were taken into account when calculating ARC, such as the portion of tax that large foreign companies doing business in the country don’t pay because they don’t have an office in Canada, for example , designating the group’s coordinator and spokesperson, Edgar Lopez-Asselin.

“Big companies are thus responsible for 70% of the tax gap in corporate tax reporting, while they account for 1% of registered companies. “Failing to report foreign investments by wealthy individuals costs Canadian taxpayers nearly $3 billion each year,” the group also said in a release.

Missing Actions

A year has passed since the report was published and very little has been done to curb the problem of tax avoidance or to recover amounts lost from taxes, stresses Mr. Lopez-Asselin in an interview with La Canadian Press.

“We understand that one of the main problems is the difficulty of documenting the scale of the problem,” he admits. But since the report was published, there has been no news or comment on its content. There was no announcement or new action to cover this shortfall. »

“Right now we have more questions than answers,” continues Mr. Lopez-Asselin. The situation shows flaws in the CRA’s collection strategy. For us it is a lack of transparency and democracy that these sums are not returned. »

The current inflationary context only amplifies the wealth gap and consequently the tax gap, adds the spokesman.

The collective Échec aux paradis paradis is calling for better financing of the CRA, tightening of the laws against tax avoidance maneuvers and more transparency within the CRA.

By better equipping the CRA to recover the billions of dollars it loses each year, “small taxpayers” would have less to compensate, whether by paying taxes or losing certain services, because they lack public funds.

“We should give the agency legal tools and increase its resources so that its inspectors can do their jobs better, to give them more leeway,” advocates Mr. Lopez-Asselin. We must close the key loopholes that allow large corporations not to pay their fair share of taxes. »

This story was produced with financial support for the news from the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press.

To see in the video