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"While most Canadians faithfully pay their taxes, this government wants to downplay the fact that hundreds of billions of dollars are going offshore to tax havens – virtually untracked and untaxed. That increases the tax burden for the rest of us.”
Ottawa (11 March 2013) – The House of Commons Finance Committee investigating the impact of tax havens on Canada’s economy should immediately call Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Kevin Page to produce a report on lost revenues. Last week, Page released a document indicating a method to estimate such losses. Last month, Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) officials dismissed requests from the committee for such an estimate.
“What don’t they want taxpayers to know?” says Canadians 4 Tax Fairness (C4TF) director Dennis Howlett. “Half the governments in the OECD have ways to estimate the tax gap.”
“It is troubling that when the Parliamentary Budget Officer offers to produce an estimate of the tax gap, CRA refuses to provide the information he needs,” says Howlett. “While most Canadians faithfully pay their taxes, this government wants to downplay the fact that hundreds of billions of dollars are going offshore to tax havens – virtually untracked and untaxed. That increases the tax burden for the rest of us.”
Page said he was unable to obtain data from the CRA that could provide a “tax gap” estimate - the difference between revenue the government ought to be able to collect and what is actually collected.
Members of Parliament need answers about why banks are so heavily involved in tax havens and what policies they have in place to ensure their tax haven subsidiaries are not facilitating tax evasion, organized crime money laundering and financing terrorism. Canadians for Tax Fairness is urging the Finance Committee to repeat their call to the banks to testify and answer these questions.
Canadians for Tax Fairness is a national citizens’ organization dedicated to fair taxation.
Canadians for Tax Fairness: Tackle Tax Havens
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The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE