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At this time last year, in late July 2024, Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad announced that G20 finance leaders were poised to endorse a joint declaration on international tax cooperation that would hopefully help to clamp down on so-called “tax havens” by encouraging G20 countries to standardize taxes on billionaires.
Since then, Canada, a G20 country, has not moved to act on the recommendations to cooperate and coordinate with other countries on taxes, spearheaded by the Brazilian government. In fact, the federal government has reduced the workforce at the Canada Revenue Agency, the government agency responsible for taxing billionaires, by 10 percent since May 2024.
According to a new report from Canadians for Tax Fairness by economists Silas Xuereb and Fernando Garci-Crespo Stantalo, “Canadians had at least $682 billion stashed in tax havens in 2024.” Furthermore, “the cost of tax havens to the public purse is difficult to estimate, but it is likely at least $15 billion annually.”
All the meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney has threatened cuts to public spending that amount to $21 billion annually, without even trying to make up the difference by closing Canadian tax havens that billionaires use to stash their cash. Canada has a tax haven dilemma, and Canadians for Tax Fairness Executive Director Jared Walker joins the Perspectives Journal Podcast to explain why the federal government lags behind this problem.
Notes and Further Reading
- ‘The rise and rise of tax havens: How the ultra-rich and mega-corporations hide wealth and cost us billions,’ by Silas Xuereb & Fernando Garci-Crespo Santaló, Canadians for Tax Fairness, 16 July 2025.
- The Rio De Janeiro G20 Ministerial Declaration on International Tax Cooperation, G20 Brasil 2024, 27 July 2024.
- ‘A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high-net-worth individuals,’ by Gabriel Zucman, Commissioned by the Brazilian G20 Presidency, 25 June 2024.
- ‘CRA call centre employees vulnerable to job cuts under Carney’s cost-savings plan, union says,’’ by Vanmala Subramaniam, The Globe and Mail, 16 July 2025.
- ‘Leading economists call for a wealth tax in the UK,’’ Tax Justice UK, 28 July 2025.
- Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, by Quinn Slobodian, Macmillan, 2023.
