Only about a quarter of Canadians believe the country’s wealthy and businesses are paying their fair share of taxes, according to a new poll commissioned by the Canada Revenue Agency.

In a telephone survey that polled 3,001 Canadians 18 years of age or older between Jan. 15 and Feb. 8 on their attitudes and behaviours toward tax compliance, only 28 per cent of those polled believed wealthy Canadians pay their fair share.

Meanwhile, only 27 per cent of respondents believed corporations in Canada were paying an appropriate amount.

The poll also found a greater share of Canadians now believe that the amount in taxes they are required to pay are fair, compared to 2011 polling for Canada’s tax collecting agency.

Forty-five per cent of those surveyed agreed that the taxes they are required to pay are fair, compared to 34 per cent in 2011. Conversely, 55 per cent of respondents said they were paying higher than what they believed to be a fair amount, compared to 61 per cent in 2011.

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David Macdonald, a tax expert at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the survey’s findings, similar to other polls, suggests it’s politically popular to increase taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, although that is rarely the case.

“It is consistently true that Canadians want to see higher taxes on corporations that they don’t think are paying their fair share. That certainly has not been the policy of almost any provincial or federal government over the last 20 years,” he said.

A March 2019 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) survey found 69 per cent of Canadian respondents said the government should tax the rich more than it currently does in order to support the poor. Ahead of the fall federal election, the NDP have also proposed a one per cent tax on wealth over $20 million in its platform.

Despite some recent changes to the tax system, such as the Liberal government creating a new income tax bracket for top earners, Macdonald said, due to a wide number of factors, it’s hard to pinpoint why more Canadians now feel that the amount of tax they pay is fair.

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Meanwhile, the poll found nearly nine in 10 respondents agreed that paying taxes is a responsibility that should be willingly accepted by all Canadians, despite a slight majority saying Canadians pay too much in taxes.

More than three-quarters of those polled also agreed that tax cheating would mean less money for government services and seven in 10 respondents said taxes help governments “do worthwhile things.”

Macdonald said it’s significant that many respondents see paying taxes as a social responsibility.

“They’re attaching a value judgment to the payment of taxes,” he said. “They’re making a value judgment that taxes are an important part of a civilized society.”

The poll also suggests a broad range of Canadians viewed tax cheating as criminal and unacceptable, regardless of the amount.

When asked if it was acceptable to not declare income received under the table on tax returns, more than three-quarters of respondents said they disagreed, and 78 per cent disagreed that tax cheating is not a real crime.

More than eight in 10 respondents disagreed that a small amount of tax cheating is not so bad, while seven in 10 respondents said they do not think it is right to be paid in cash to avoid paying taxes.

The problem of tax evasion has emerged for policy-makers in recent years, particularly since the 2015 and 2017 releases of the Panama and Paradise papers that outlined how the world’s wealthy and powerful avoid paying taxes.

The CRA estimated in June 2018 that the “tax gap” — the difference between how much the government would collect if everyone paid what they owe, and how much the government actually takes in — totalled $14.6 billion annually.

The Liberals have earmarked more than $1 billion toward efforts to crack down on tax evasion since they formed government in 2015.

Macdonald said its palatable for parties to propose policies that go after tax havens and tax loopholes if the revenues retrieved can fund government services.

“We’ll see whether that type of tradeoff is in fact what parties include in their platforms,” he said.

Research firm Phoenix SPI was awarded a $159,000 contract to conduct the poll.

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