TORONTO, ON – April 4, 2024 – Canadian tax lawyer and chartered accountant David J Rotfleisch today released the third edition of "Canadian Tax Facts," a global resource compiled for reporters, editors, and TV/radio producers as well as anyone interested in business tax rates, personal tax rates, tax audits, tax reassessments, cryptocurrency tax, information on trusts, and tax evasion/unreported offshore income/Black Money.
Rotfleisch is a leading Canadian tax lawyer and managing partner of Rotfleisch & Samulovitch Professional Corporation.
The almost 50-page "Canadian Tax Facts 2024" is a free download at Taxpage.com, the firm's main website.
Equally important, "Canadian Tax Facts 2024" is intended to be a source of story ideas for journalists who "follow the money" as well as holding Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to account. As many Canadians have discovered first-hand, the CRA has vast powers tax citizens while remaining opaque itself.
New this year is a section trusts, frequently used by high-net-worth individuals to hide and obfuscate assets. New in 2023 were sections on cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
"The focus on tax has never been greater. Governments around the world are still grappling with how to pay for the pandemic and how to control inflation," said Rotfleisch.
At the same time, governments are ramping up renewable energy, aging infrastructure, the effects of climate change on immigration, manufacturing, and the food supply," said Rotfleisch.
There is a global movement against plutocrats and Russian oligarchs as shown by the Pandora Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Panama Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
"And governments are struggling with how to both regulate and tax cryptocurrencies," said Rotfleisch, adding that Canadian cryptocurrency taxation is a particular area of expertise for the firm.
He pointed out that having an offshore account is not illegal for Canadians, but not reporting an offshore account and not paying tax on it is illegal. Tax avoidance—abiding by the tax rules—is much of tax planning, along with tax deferral.
Tax evasion is, of course, illegal. "In the words of Albert Einstein: 'The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.' Einstein found his Theory of Relativity easy to understand," said Rotfleisch.
"Canadian Tax Facts" is updated annually, in April to coincide with tax season, and distributed to interested media, businesses and individuals via the Taxpage.com website.
Rotfleisch and Samulovitch operates a number of Canadian tax websites with lots of useful videos and articles: 1) Taxpage.com, 2) TaxLawCanada, 3) CanadianTaxAmnesty.ca, 4) GoodServiceTax.com, and 5) CryptoTaxLawyer.com.