A new report by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) says that in the fiscal year of 2014, 24 to 29 per cent of all the corporate income tax legally due in Canada didn’t get paid, which translates to an avoided $11.4 billion in lost taxes. The data reveals how wide the scope of delinquent corporations is, keeping billions of dollars from ordinary citizens who need it the most – and the CRA even admits that their estimated numbers are likely conservative.

According to the 2019 Alternative Federal Budget, decades of tax cuts have compromised the fiscal health of government. Federal revenues are presently 14.4% of GDP, much lower than the 50-year average of 16.4%. This 2% difference represents lost revenue of $46 billion in 2019 alone.

If federal revenues were at their longer-term average, the federal government would raise an additional $50 billion in revenues annually – enough to properly fund initiatives such as childcare, pharmacare, affordable housing and environmental measures which citizens rely on.

According to Canadians for Tax Fairness, a group that advocates for progressive tax policies, Canada’s richest 10 per cent now get a discount of more than $20,000 on their taxes due to unfair loopholes – and the top one per cent of Canadians pays a lower overall effective rate of tax than all other income groups, including the poorest ten percent.

The additional revenues created with a fairer tax plan could create an affordable childcare for all plan, support Canada’s plans for a universal pharmacare system, make university and college tuition free and fund elements of a Canadian Green New Deal.

Just by closing regressive tax loopholes, which allow those with higher incomes to pay less taxes, the federal government could be making an extra $16 billion a year. By making the tax system more progressive, a total of $16.7 billion could be made – and by going after tax havens and offshore bank accounts, at least $6 billion in revenue would be recovered.