It seems more and more Canadians are cheating the tax man.
A new survey by H&R Block shows most of us know evading taxes is illegal, but many are still willing to pay cash under the table to get a deal.
Revenue Canada estimates tax evasion costs the Canadian government $41 billion annually.
The survey found that the number of Canadians who think it’s wrong to pay cash to avoid paying tax has gone up.
58 per cent of Canadian say “it’s wrong” to pay cash to avoid paying taxes, up from 28 per cent the last time the survey was conducted in 2012.
34 per cent of Canadians say they would report a tax cheat — while 17 per cent of people say they have paid under the table to avoid taxes.
H&R Block Senior Tax Analyst Caroline Battista says the tax avoidance fines are 10 per cent provincially, and 10 per cent federally on the amount of money not claimed.
“Say you have $3,000 you don’t claim — and they find that out — the fine would be $600, and then we get back to paying the tax on top of that,” says Battista.
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