Defrauding Canada Revenue Agency

Citizens receive services from their governments in return for taxes paid.  The earning power of individuals is recognized as the wealth of a nation.  Taxes are a burden that in theory all who earn a living wage must expect to pay in equal measure.  And for which all are entitled to receive compensatory services. 

Those incapable of earning a living are not expected to pay taxes.  Through governmental and non-governmental sources there are services and enterprises to support the indigent through welfare.

The fairness of the system is hugely dependent on everyone paying their fair share of taxation.  For which the benefits of security, defence, and services at the federal, provincial and municipal level are provided from education to health provisions, fire-fighting and policing, libraries and garbage collection, water and energy generation are part of the social contract. 

So it becomes a real sour note when those who can afford to pay taxes go out of their way through clever and illicit means to evade their responsibility.  There are those who are belligerent about paying taxes in the self-availing belief they have no need to, despite that they take advantage of all the social services that society provides for its population. 

A group naming themselves Paradigm Education Group that teaches eager conscripts the methods by which they can hope to evade paying taxes has come into the news.  The tax-defiant originator of the group is currently in prison for evading his taxation responsibilities.  And a couple, one of whom is a Pembroke dentist, Tania Kovaluk, and her husband, have now been sentenced to 20/2 years and four years respectively in prison.

The dentist failed to report $2.6-million in income between 2003 and 2007, defrauding the Canada Revenue Agency along with "all honest, taxpaying Canadians".  Nice work if you can get it, if you really feel entitled to it, if you don't value the extent to which all three levels of government provide essential services to taxpayers. 

During 2003 and 2007 Ms. Kovaluk and her husband lived rather well, spending whatever funds they wished to provide for their mode of living.

They built two villas in Costa Rica, bought gold in Canada and through offshore accounts, and built a home in Ottawa valued at $974,000, buying luxuries as well such as jewellery, art and furniture.  And paid for lavish vacations.  Clearly the tax they failed to pay fuelled only a portion of these extravagant expenses, but tax money was obviously sidelined to help pay for their lifestyle.

The fine was commensurate with the crime.  Along with the prison term of four years, Ms. Kovaluk must pay $887,000 which accounts for her personal tax evasion along with the GST she collected at her dentistry practise.  But the really distastefully disagreeable part of this tawdry tale is the money they extracted from dentistry students who were forced to pay between 7 and 10% of the money they 'saved' from not paying taxes - to Ms. Kovaluk's husband.

Ms. Kovaluk's husband was estimated to have helped 'students' defraud the Canada Revenue Agency to the tune of about $4.5-million between 2003 and 2008.  Lee Williams, Ms. Kovaluk's husband, ran seminars through the Paradigm Education Group to teach followers about the unconstitutionality of paying taxes, convincing them that taxation represented a confiscation of property, offensive to the Canadian Bill of Rights.