How should blatant tax evasion be handled?

How should you handle information about people who cheat on their taxes? Report the offenders. We are afraid, or too nice, or can't be bothered unless it affects us directly.  

People who cheat on their taxes do affect us directly, we pay more taxes at higher rates to cover deficits in funding our government programs for schools, roads, health care, education, and other programs because not everyone is paying their fair share.

It's funny, we let people get away with cheating unless we're angry at an ex-spouse, of course, then we're all over calling it in!

Contact CRA to report activity you are aware of.  CRA listens and when they catch a couple of these people and the resulting tax court case are completed, they will get a great deal of publicity. We do have an Informant Leads Program to call with just such stories and the stories about successful cases is published on the CRA website.  Just type in the word "convictions" on the CRA website at www.cra-arc.gc.ca to read about the story and the consequences of not complying with tax legislation.

What else should be done?  Please contact your Member of Parliament to share this blog and the story that prompted this post so they can bring it up to question the Finance Minister about why S. 212(1)(b) was eliminated:

CRA auditors have some tools at their disposal already.  They should be asking for documentation about any foreign receivables and checking information under exchange of information agreements (treaties)! 

Recommended actions by Finance Minister :

Reporting requirements must be reinstated if this is the result of those requirements being taken away:

The Finance Minister should have a requirement that banks to report all interest earning balances held by non-residents where a Canadian resident has Power of Attorney or any signatory on any accounts held by non-residents

The Finance Minister should be considering whether it's appropriate to reinstate NR-4 reporting for non residents where annual interest payments to non-residents exceed a threshold of say $5,000 or where the bank knows of any relationship between non-residents and residents and there are multiple accounts to get around the requirements to report by utilizing affiliated, related, or connected parties with multiple accounts.