Morneau should target the real tax cheaters

Editor: In a business program on BNN, it was reported that Finance Minister Bill Morneau is on record as saying his government’s new tax plan is “squarely targeted at the advantages of the wealthy.” This is a lie.

The many small business entrepreneurs and new medical professionals and others just beginning their careers that this tax regime targets are certainly not wealthy.

These changes to close so-called tax loopholes are idiotic in terms of economic principles and is also a repugnant implication that these middle-class citizens are out to cheat the tax system. Who’s cheating who here? A few years ago, there was an Auditor General’s report that identified significant amounts of tax dollars owed to this country that were being hidden in off-shore accounts, predominantly in British-Dutch owned financial institutions in the Antilles and Caymen Islands.

There was a lot of blather from the Harper government that this would be addressed, but, par for the course, nothing happened. Canada loses an estimated $7.8 billion per year from what is pure and simple tax evasion.

Morneau should investigate this growing problem of tax fraud. That’s a lot money that should be circulating in our economy.

Some readers may remember during the last weeks of the 2015 federal election, it was reported that with the assistance and “expertise” of the accounting firm KPMG, 25 of the most wealthy Canadian families had defrauded Canada Revenue by stashing millions of taxable income in Luxembourg.

This report of criminal activity pretty much lasted the usual week-and-a-half news cycle and then got lost in the “white noise” of election hoopla.

Morneau needs to set his sights on the correct target. This government’s tax policy is detrimental to economic growth.

I have this image of Morneau with a card table set up on Bay Street dealing out the old Three Card Monte scam with our boy wonder prime minister playing his shill. Brian Gray,

Penticton