Watchdog raises red flags after reports the CRA wrote off $133M in money owed by single taxpayer

By Cormac MacSweeney

OTTAWA (NEWS 1130) – As Canadians struggle to file their taxes before the end of the month, a fiscal watchdog group is raising red flags following reports the Canada Revenue Agency has written off more than $130-million in money owed by a single taxpayer.

This massive write-off in tax debt happened in early 2018.

“It’s a very large write-off,” Aaron Wudrick with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says. “[But] it’s not the largest I’ve ever heard of.”

According to the report, it was over unspecified excise duties, but that’s about all we know.

Due to privacy reasons, the CRA is refusing to provide any more details on the case, not even saying if the taxpayer involved is an individual or a corporation.

Wudrick says Canadians deserve answers because write-offs like this affect everyone.

“The main reason you need to worry about people not paying their taxes is the rest of us have to make it up,” he explains. “We need to have faith in the integrity of our tax system, and if people think that there are special deals being done, that really undermines the integrity of our system.”

Wudrick says this could be a tax break for someone who doesn’t deserve it, or it could be a case of a company going bankrupt and not having the cash to pay its bill.

We won’t know for sure unless the revenue agency provides more details.

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