PIPSC commends Canada’s new corporate transparency requirements to combat tax evasion, money laundering, and other financial crimes. 

The federal government passed landmark legislation last year requiring Canadian corporations to disclose their beneficial owner·s. A beneficial owner is the individual, or individuals, who control a significant share of a company. 

Criminals can use shell companies to launder money, evade taxes, and finance illicit activities. Without beneficial ownership information, it’s difficult to trace and prosecute these crimes. 

As of January 22, 2024, Canadian companies must start filing their beneficial owner information, which will be centralized in a publicly accessible registry. This brings Canada in line with more than 130 countries that have committed to open corporate ownership registries. 

PIPSC has long advocated for stronger beneficial ownership transparency to address tax dodging, fraud, and money laundering. 

A 2018 survey of our members who were auditors at the Canada Revenue Agency found:

• 61% believed Canada is too secretive about beneficial ownership information
• 75% said federal and provincial governments should require corporations to publicly identify beneficial ownership relationships

We’re pleased policymakers considered our recommendations and the expertise of our members. 

Accessible beneficial ownership information is long overdue in Canada, where more than $40 billion is laundered through the economy each year. 

Canada’s corporate beneficial ownership registry will be a critical tool to help federal and provincial governments deter crime and ensure everyone pays their fair share.

Everybody knows that huge corporations and the ultra-rich don’t pay their fair share.

PIPSC members have been calling for change for years, and Canadians agree. According to a 2021 survey, 70% of Canadians think that large corporations and the ultra-wealthy don’t pay enough taxes. 92% support changes to make it harder for corporations to use tax loopholes.

We assembled an expert, non-partisan panel to brief Parliamentarians on this key issue on March 4, 2022, including:

• Jennifer Carr, PIPSC President
• John Anderson, PIPSC Senior Research Officer
• Denise Byrnes, Director General of Oxfam Québec
• David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data

Watch the video below to learn more about tax fairness issues and the solutions we’re advocating for. If you want to learn more about the issue, contact the Office of the President.

On May 6, 2021, PIPSC President Debi Daviau and Economist Ryan Campbell testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) about the Canada Revenue’s Agency’s (CRA) efforts to fight tax evasion.

The rules must apply to everyone, but unfortunately many wealthy individuals and corporations use their superior resources to look for a shelter or haven where the tax rules don’t apply. While these privileged few get a reduced tax bill, governments lose revenue for public services, resulting in either service cuts or tax hikes for everybody else.

In 2012, sweeping budget cuts were introduced to the CRA. Even with more recent government reinvestments, CRA still doesn’t have all the tools, training and staff it needs to get the job done. 

We need to fix this now. More than ever, Canada needs the tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue, if not more, that are sitting in off-shore tax havens. We need to:

• better enforce existing tax laws
• prevent political interference at the CRA
• better protect whistleblowers
• hire more technical advisors and invest in technology and training
• enhance the capacity of the CRA’s regional offices

A number of policy reforms also need to be undertaken.

Budget 2021 announced initiatives that, when implemented, will take tangible steps in the direction of tax fairness. These include a digital service tax for companies like Netflix and Amazon and the creation of a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry.

These are both important initiatives long championed by PIPSC members and our allies in civil society. 

But while these changes are welcomed, we still have work to do. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated as much as $25 billion of corporate tax revenue is lost to tax havens every year. We must do more to end the transfer pricing and profit shifting that facilitates this destructive practice. As of now, some incremental steps are being taken, but there are a variety of additional actions that can be put in place. The end result would be a new, simplified view of the global commercial landscape – one in which corporations can be prevented from pitting countries against each other and are taxed fairly everywhere.

Overall, our CRA professionals must receive the training, tools and resources they need to do their jobs. The CRA must receive appropriate funding to ensure tax laws are enforced equitably and that wealthy individuals and powerful corporations are just as accountable as any other Canadian. And there needs to be international cooperation and updates to legislation, so those who try the hardest to avoid taxes end up paying their fair share.

Good news! Thanks to successful advocacy on the part of PIPSC, Bill C-224 was rejected by the House of Commons Finance Committee (FINA) on March 3, 2021. It was then fully defeated in the House of Commons on April 14. Conservative and Bloc MPs voted in favour, but the NDP and Liberal MPs voted against the bill to defeat it.

Our CRA members will continue to administer income tax declarations for Quebecers until further notice.

The bill aimed at transferring tax processing for Quebec residents from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to Revenu Québec. FINA members, however, agreed with our position that having Quebec tax declarations administered at the federal level (as all other provinces do) remains the best way to proceed because:

• It’s the most cost-effective solution for all taxpayers
• It ensures we can build a more progressive tax system
• It enables us to achieve tax fairness at an international level

When this bill was first introduced, PIPSC President Debi Daviau was quick to jump into action by appearing at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. Accompanied by AFS Group Quebec Representative Jean Couillard and our UTE colleagues, our message was clear: Bill C-224 is flawed, and the CRA already has the capacity to effectively process Quebec tax declarations. 

After our appearance at the committee,  PIPSC President Debi Daviau and members of the AFS executive met with a wide range of Members of Parliament from all the major parties including  the Minister of Revenue, Diane Labouthilier. At these meetings we took the opportunity to discuss tax fairness and issues facing our members at the CRA.

“We need a strong Canada Revenue Agency that can work across borders to close tax loopholes. If we are looking to reduce paperwork for Quebecers, the government should consolidate their tax processing within the CRA or fulfill its election commitment to introduce automatic tax filing. We’re keen to work with any Members of Parliament who want to collaborate on these proposals,” concluded President Daviau.

Canada is losing billions of dollars in tax revenue to off-shore tax havens.

As a part of our fight to close tax loopholes, PIPSC participates in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative. Over 135 countries are collaborating to put an end to tax avoidance strategies that exploit gaps and mismatches in tax rules to avoid paying tax.

In March 2020, we provided a submission on the OECD Review of the BEPS Action 13 minimum standard based on the responses of thousands of CRA professionals to our 2018 Tax Fairness Survey.

Read the PIPSC submission

Though the BEPS represents a significant step forward, it does not go far enough and there are steps that should be taken more quickly. The OECD’s country by country reporting (CbCR) standards should move towards the Global Reporting Initiative Tax Standard to address data quality shortcomings. And CbCR reports should be made available to the public. We also believe the current threshold for CbCR is too high.

PIPSC Economist, Ryan Campbell, will represent members at the OECD virtual consultation on BEPS Action 13 on May 12-13, 2020.

We must close tax loopholes and collect revenue to fund the services Canadians rely on. We won’t sit by and watch rich corporations and individuals avoid contributing their fair share.

We are fighting for tax fairness.

We represent thousands of professionals at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). They collect the taxes needed to fund the public services Canadians depend on every day.

We need to elect a government that will close tax loopholes and ensure that wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share.

With insufficient resources and outdated technology, Canada’s tax professionals are at a significant disadvantage when they try to go after tax cheats who use off-shore tax havens, or business owners who hide their assets and use “profit shifting” tools to minimize their tax bills. In addition, global e-commerce giants enjoy a very real tax advantage compared to their Canadian counterparts. Overall, the federal government loses billions of dollars in tax revenue every year. This money could be invested in public infrastructure and programs that would benefit ALL Canadians.

In this election, we are calling on federal political parties to commit to:

• Tax e-commerce companies fairly
• End “profit-shifting”
• Create a publicly-accessible “beneficial ownership” registry
• Invest in CRA training, new technologies and regional offices

Learn more about our position on tax fairness. 

We surveyed the four federal parties running candidates across the country to find out where they stand on tax fairness:

• The Green Party of Canada: will close tax loopholes, provide adequate funding to the CRA and tax e-commerce giants.
• The Liberal Party of Canada: will continue investing in the CRA and implement a consistent national approach to beneficial ownership. No comment on e-commerce or profit shifting.
• The New Democratic Party of Canada: will implement the measures recommended by PIPSC.
• The Conservative Party of Canada did not answer the survey.

With one click, you can email your local candidates to find out where they stand on tax fairness.  

Email your local candidates

On October 21, use your vote to support Tax Fairness.

Want to know where these federal parties stand on other issues of importance to PIPSC members?

What about a single tax return administered by the government of Québec?

Québec’s National Assembly has recently begun promoting the idea of a single tax return to be administered by its provincial government tax professionals. Our AFS members are justifiably concerned by the impact this would have on their positions and careers.

While current estimates point to the added costs of having to file two separate tax returns in Québec, leading tax experts believe that the single return proposal is impracticable, and that reducing overlaps and increasing efficiencies would be best achieved by a single return administered by the CRA. As well, international agreements such as those aimed at fighting tax evasion are signed between central governments, and Québec would not be in a position to perform the federal government’s work in this area.  

Because of the importance of this issue to so many of our members, we would like share the views, as we understand them, of the four federal parties running candidates across Canada, as well as those of the Bloc Québecois and the People’s Party of Canada.

Is your party in favour of a single tax return for Québec residents?

• Liberal Party of Canada: opposed to the proposal
• Conservative Party of Canada: favours the proposal
• Bloc Québecois: favours the proposal
• New Democratic Party of Canada: first supported, now opposes the proposal
• Green Party of Canada: currently no official position on this issue, but candidates in Quebec have indicated support for the proposal
• People’s Party: currently no position on this issue

Every $1 invested in public service tax professionals will generate $4 in public revenue, an analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) has confirmed.

“Regular people are paying their fair share of taxes. But large corporations and wealthy individuals can hire teams of high-priced specialists to aggressively game the tax code,” said PIPSC president Debi Daviau. PIPSC represents nearly 12,000 Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) tax professionals focused predominantly on corporate audits.

The PBO analysis was released as part of an election platform costing exercise and is a credible, non-partisan report. The analysis clearly shows that investing in the CRA will generate public funds for the services Canadians rely on.

Harper’s 2012 federal budget significantly undermined the CRA’s capacity to stop the richest corporations and individuals from ducking their fair share of taxes. Despite much-needed reinvestment in the CRA since 2015, funding levels are still $500 million below the 2012 cuts.

When Canadians were asked in a 2018 Environics survey whether it’s easier for corporations and wealthy individuals to evade or avoid tax than it is for average people, almost 80% of respondents agreed. When PIPSC put the same question to the auditors, economists, actuaries and other professionals at the CRA, the level of agreement was even higher: 90% said it’s easier for the rich to get around taxes compared to others.

“It is unfair that everyone else has to suffer while the richest individuals and corporations in this country are gaming the system to avoid paying their fair share,” said Daviau. “It’s time to invest in CRA auditors so they can bring fairness back to our tax system.”