Canada’s top corporations often pay far less than the official average corporate tax rate. As revealed by a Toronto Star/Corporate Knights investigation, Canadian companies have used complex techniques and loopholes to reduce their tax bills by $62.9 billion over the past six years.

As corporate tax rates have dropped, people have had to make up the difference. In 2015-2016, for every dollar that corporations paid in tax, the Canadian public paid $3.50.

You have to go back 65 years to 1952 to find the last year that people and corporations paid the same amount in income tax. Since then, the gap has steadily grown. Here’s how we got here:

1917: Finance minister Sir Thomas White introduced “temporary” corporate and personal income taxes to finance the war effort.

1926: Over a series of four budgets, finance minister James A. Robb cut taxes on lower and middle income brackets in half and for the top bracket by a third. His reforms went through shortly before he died days following the October 1929 stock market crash.

1939: The excess profits tax was introduced to tax profits above a “standard level” determined by Ottawa. In 1942, the tax rate was increased to 100 per cent of the “excess profits,” of which 20 per cent would be later refunded.

1943: Finance minister J.L. Ilsley introduced “pay as you earn” measure, where employers deduct employees’ projected taxes from their paycheques.

1962: John Diefenbaker appointed a Royal Commission on Taxation, later called “the Carter Commission” after its chair, Toronto accountant Kenneth Carter.

1967: The Carter Commission report found that low-income earners were paying more than their fair share of income taxes because of how the tax code treated different types of income, and recommended that Canada consider a “buck is a buck,” and tax it, regardless of its source. The commission’s recommendations would have seen 50 percent of the population have their taxes reduced by more than 50 percent, 10 percent would have their taxes increased by more than 15 percent and the rest would not see much change.

1969: Pierre Trudeau’s pipe-smoking accountant finance minister Edgar Benson issued a tax reform white paper that was a watered down version of the Carter Commission recommendations, which had come under fire from corporate Canada. The resource industry threatened a capital strike and Benson was forced to further water down the proposals.

1971: A watered down version of the white paper was enacted, including a partial taxation on capital gains.

1970s: Many tax breaks introduced including generous depreciation allowances and making dividends and interest deductible.

1973: Finance minister John Turner indexed exemptions and tax brackets to inflation.

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1974: Turner introduced subparagraph 95(2)(a)(ii) of the Income Tax Act, which allowed Canadian companies to bring home dividends tax-free from tax havens like Barbados.

1978: A presentation by two Price Waterhouse accountants (Bob Brown and Carl Steiss) for the Institute of Chartered Accountants showed how 95(2)(a)(ii) could be used to create cross border double dip structures, deducting the same interest expenses multiple times. It was in the days before everybody had a cell phone, and mid-way through the presentation about 80 percent of the room full of accountants emptied out to find pay phones to call back to the office to let them know there was this new trick that could be used to slash corporate tax bills.

1981: Finance minister Allan MacEachen caught the public by surprise with a revenue enhancing budget proposing to reverse tax breaks for the rich and reduce taxes on 12 million Canadians albeit by an “infinitesimal amount.” It didn’t go over well, and opposition, much of it from business lobbies led to the unwinding of many of its 150 proposed tax measures.

1987: Conservative finance minister Michael Wilson began a Canadian tax reform that included a transition from the Manufacturer’s Sales Tax to the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

1997: The Mintz Technical Committee on Business Taxation Report recommended cutting tax rates and scaling back many of the corporate tax breaks. Over the next 20 years, the federal government and the provinces reduced personal and corporate taxes, but left many of the corporate tax breaks in place.

2007: Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty promised a crack-down on tax loopholes, putting an end to the practice of companies borrowing in Canada to fund business operations abroad, then deducting the interest paid against Canadian profits. “The free ride is over,” he said. “Everyone’s going to pay their fair share.” After being besieged by the business community who said the change would hobble them internationally, Flaherty threw in the towel and the change never went through.