A New Brunswick man’s charge for failing to file a tax return was recently stayed by the Canada Revenue Agency. According to the Public Prosecutor on the file, the charge was stayed for economic reasons – the taxpayer earned little taxable income in the year and had already been found guilty of failing to file tax returns in previous years.
Although I was quoted in the above article, I think it is important to emphasize that I don’t believe that this taxpayer’s case is a precedent to be used by others who do not want to file income tax returns; the taxpayer in this situation had already been prosecuted for failing to file tax returns in previous years and had served jail time for those charges. I suspect that in this case CRA felt it would be a better use of its resources to pursue another taxpayer for the first time instead of continuing to go after this particular individual.