Enforcement

You cannot avoid paying the taxes you owe by not filing a tax return, or by not reporting all of your income. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) uses a variety of tools to identify non-compliance and take action to address mistakes or tax cheating.

The CRA is committed to promoting the integrity of the tax system through a number of compliance activities. In 2006-2007 the CRA:

• identified a total dollar value of non-compliance of about $12.7 billion
• obtained more than 800,000 returns from taxpayers who had not filed their returns
• made almost 820,000 adjustments to individual tax returns after comparing the information reported by taxpayers with data filed by third parties (such as employers)
• reviewed more than 6,400 businesses to ensure that they were maintaining proper books and records
• conducted over 393,000 audit and review actions including 20,635 underground economy audits and more than 1,300 investigations of taxpayers suspected of earning income from illegal activities
• undertook legal action that resulted in the conviction of 1,266 taxpayers who had not filed tax returns or not registered for GST/HST

More information on the compliance and enforcement activities of CRA undertook in the past year can be found in the 2006-2007 Annual Report to Parliament available at www.cra.gc.ca/annualreport.

This information presented is only of a general nature, may omit many details and special rules, is current only as of the published date, and accordingly cannot be regarded as legal or tax advice. Please consult our office for more information on this subject and how it pertains to your specific tax or financial situation.

Call us to discuss your Personal & Corporate tax needs - (416) 803-5638.