Canada is among the top five countries responsible for cross-border tax abuse, according to experts.
Canada climbed the dishonor table in the most recent State of play on the extent of tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals drawn up by the specialized NGO Tax Justice Network (TJN) and unveiled on Tuesday. He arrives at 5e rank among the main countries responsible for the problem, being linked to more than 6% of the approximately US$492 billion in tax losses incurred by all countries in one year.
Indeed, if it appears that Canada can complain about losing each year a total of 10.9 billion (more than 15 billion CA$) in tax revenue because of the acrobatics and accounting shenanigans of rich individuals (nearly 2 billion US$, or CA$2.8 billion), but especially multinationals (US$8.9 billion, or CA$12.4 billion), the governments of other countries can especially blame it for costing them more than 31 billion in lost tax revenue, both on the side of large fortunes (nearly 3 billion) and on the side of multinationals (28.2 billion).
At the top of this sad ranking, the British territory of the Cayman Islands, in the West Indies, and Hong Kong are doing much worse, each with just over 45 billion in total tax losses inflicted on other countries. Next come Ireland (almost 41 billion) and the United States (37.5 billion).
However, Canada comes ahead of all other countries, particularly those that are often accused of serving as tax havens, such as the United Kingdom (7e with 23.5 billion), Switzerland (9e with 21 billion), Luxembourg (10e with 17 billion), Panama (17e with 11 billion) and Bermuda (19e with 8.5 billion).
Canada’s fifth place in this TJN portrait of countries complicit in tax evasion and avoidance in the world is a novelty. Last year, the NGO’s experts still attributed it “only” to the 12e rank, with a total almost three times lower (11.5 billion) in tax losses that can be attributed to it.
Dramatic twist
This twist should not be seen as a sign of a lack of seriousness in the TJN methodology, assures Edgar Lopez-Asselin, coordinator of the Quebec collective Échec aux paradis fiscals. “The Tax Justice Network is truly the authority on this subject. I believe that these changes rather reflect the great difficulty of access to information. »
For its evaluations, the TJN is based in particular on data collected under a new rule from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) requiring large multinationals to report, country by country, their revenues, their number of workers, their profits and their taxes paid.
The central role played by Canada in international tax avoidance is mainly due to three factors, explains Edgar Lopez-Asselin, starting with its generous and accommodating tax rules in the mining sector and for other extractive industries. Tax experts have also learned to take advantage of its numerous bilateral tax conventions signed with tax havens, supposed to avoid double taxation of companies and individuals, but sometimes resulting in double non-taxation. And then, there is “this extreme opacity” which surrounds the financial data of private companies which are not listed on the stock exchange and which too often allows the latter to organize their figures as they see fit.
What is striking, says the TJN in its report, is that all these efforts made for years by the OECD to bring abusive tax practices into line, as well as its new rules, do not seem, for the moment, to have no effect on the problem. The governments that allowed themselves to be convinced to reduce their tax rates to encourage a return to the fold of companies and big fortunes are no further ahead. “The data now shows that this only compounded the losses they suffered. »
Tax avoidance and austerity
The irony, continues the TJN, is that the main countries responsible for the problem, from developed economies, are also the most affected. The authors of the report particularly want as proof these “eight harmful countries” which are opposed to this project in the development of a framework convention on international tax cooperation at the United Nations. Made up of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and Israel, this group of “blocking countries” is complicit in almost the half (43%) of tax avoidance in the world, but itself loses 177 billion.
Expected to begin next year, the negotiations at the UN would have the advantage of leading to international rules decided on a global basis, rather than in the restricted circle of the OECD club of rich countries. “Cross-border tax abuse is the biggest obstacle to taxes [et à des politiques sociales] effective and progressive,” argues the TJN.
The US$10.9 billion in tax revenue lost in Canada is equivalent to 6% of its annual health spending. “At a time when we are hearing more and more about austerity in Quebec and Ottawa, this is the kind of thing that risks going down more and more badly in public opinion,” notes Edgar Lopez- Asselin.
