The Canada Revenue Agency is trying to get $100 million from Islanders and Island businesses that they say owe the federal government for unpaid taxes.
Mark Marshall, a licensed insolvency trustee with Allan Marshall and Associates, isn’t surprised.
Every day, he works with people who owe taxes or are trying to pay off taxes that have been sent to collections. The move is often a last resort when you can’t get in touch with the debtor, find out about problems, or make a payment plan. He said, “It’s a situation that makes me very stressed.” He said, “A lot of the time, people deal with their stress by … not dealing with it.”
The CRA says that Islanders owe them more than $100 million in taxes that they haven’t paid.
Documents filed in the P.E.I. Supreme Court show that people owe a lot of money, with some owing tens of thousands and others more than a million.
A lot of people who owe money are self-employed.
Marshall said that there are ways to settle CRA debt that let Canadians set up a payment plan.
He said that about half of the people he meets with have problems with the CRA, “some big, some small.”
Marshall said that a lot of the people who owe have started their own businesses, but they don’t always hire a bookkeeper or accountant until it’s too late. You have to keep an eye on that stuff from the very beginning.
People not paying what they owe
Senator Percy Downe from P.E.I. says that unpaid taxes aren’t just a problem on the Island, but they are still a big one.
Downe said that means the government can’t cut taxes or put money into things that would make Canadians’ lives better.
He said that there are a lot of unpaid taxes in Canada and that a lot of people are avoiding paying taxes in other countries. He said that the CRA does “a horrible job” of finding them. People who hide their money in other countries to avoid paying taxes in Canada make the rest of us pay more to make up the difference.
There is a man in a dark suit and blue tie sitting in front of a bookcase. Senator Percy Downe of P.E.I. says that unpaid taxes are a big problem, even though they aren’t just a problem on the Island. (Laura Meader/CBC)
A CRA spokesperson told CBC News in an email that they do everything they can to collect debts, but when debts aren’t paid, they work with Canadians to set up payment plans. The spokesperson said, “If it is determined that a taxpayer has the ability to pay their debt in full and it remains unpaid without an acceptable payment arrangement, the CRA may take legal action to recover the debt.”
