Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers Act (measuring the tax gap to fight international tax evasion)

This bill, known as the Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers Act, makes changes to how the Canada Revenue Agency reports on tax evasion and unpaid taxes. It amends the Canada Revenue Agency Act to require the CRA to include a detailed list of all tax evasion convictions in its annual report to the Minister of National Revenue, with a separate listing specifically for international tax evasion cases.

The bill also creates a new requirement for measuring and reporting on the "tax gap" — the difference between taxes that should have been collected and what was actually collected, including unpaid tax linked to undeclared income and unreported foreign property. Every three years, the CRA's annual report must include detailed statistics on this tax gap, broken down by taxpayer type (individuals, corporations by size, and trusts). The calculation must consider things like audit reassessments, uncollected revenue from those reassessments, and rates of undetected reporting errors.

Finally, the bill requires the Minister of National Revenue to share this tax gap data with the Parliamentary Budget Officer, along with any other related data the Officer considers necessary for independent analysis. This data-sharing is governed by existing confidentiality and procedural rules under the Parliament of Canada Act, ensuring the information is handled appropriately while still giving Parliament's independent budget watchdog access to it for oversight purposes.

This bill amends the Canada Revenue Agency Act to require new content in the CRA's annual report and require the Minister of National Revenue to share tax gap data with the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

• New reporting obligation on the CRA — the Agency's annual report to the Minister of National Revenue must now include a detailed list of all convictions for tax evasion, with international tax evasion listed separately.
• New statistical requirement — once every three years, the annual report must include tax gap statistics, covering individuals, corporations (segmented by size), and trusts resident in Canada, based on factors defined in the bill such as reassessment values, audit-detected error rates, and unreported foreign property under section 233.3 of the Income Tax Act.
• Definition set in law — "tax gap" is defined in the bill itself as unassessed tax on undeclared income plus the gap between taxes assessed and taxes collected, with no discretion left to the Minister to redefine it.
• Data-sharing duty toward the Parliamentary Budget Officer — the Minister must provide the PBO with the collected tax gap data, plus any additional data the PBO considers relevant to its own analysis of the tax gap.
• Confidentiality rules applied — provisions of the Parliament of Canada Act (subsection 79.4(2) and sections 79.41 to 79.5) governing how the PBO handles requested information are applied to this tax gap data, treating it as if formally requested under that Act.
• No penalties or new enforcement body created — the bill does not establish fines, offences, or a new office; it only creates reporting and data-sharing duties for the CRA and the Minister, with no stated review or sunset clause for these requirements.