Canadians with offshore holdings evade up to $3 billion in tax per year

Wealthy Canadians with hidden offshore accounts are evading up to $3 billion in tax every year, according to the first ever estimate of the international tax gap by the Canada Revenue Agency, obtained by the Star.

In a report to be made public Thursday, the government estimates Canadian individuals are hiding between $75.9 billion and $240.5 billion in offshore tax havens and elsewhere, and not paying tax on it.

The analysis “gives a sense of the potential magnitude of forgone tax revenues associated with the unreported offshore investment income earned by Canadians,” states the report. “Understanding how and why taxpayers are non-compliant is critical to help preserve the integrity of the tax system and to protect Canada’s revenue base, which supports programs and benefits delivered to Canadians.”

Allison Christians, a tax professor at McGill University, said the fact that so much wealth is being hidden offshore reveals a dangerous attitude among the wealthy.

“It’s disheartening to know that the scale of hiding assets offshore is so large. You want to believe people understand the importance of paying taxes. To find out that those with the greatest ability to pay are concealing such large sums offshore is just disappointing.”

For Sen. Percy Downe, who has been lobbying the CRA to publish this information since 2013, the report has been a long time coming.

“There’s no question there’s a major tax evasion problem,” Downe said. “Based on the CRA’s track record, I would think this number is a lowball estimate.”

After years of refusing to estimate how much tax was being lost to cheating — going so far as to fight the Parliamentary Budget Officer in court to prevent the release of the data — the CRA did an about-face and started issuing partial tax gap estimates in 2016, shortly after the Panama Papers were made public.

“I committed to Canadians that the CRA would study the tax gap and that is exactly what we are doing,” said National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier in a written statement sent to the Star. “Estimating the international tax gap is challenging and publishing such an estimate makes Canada a pioneer in this field.”