Tax-evading Winnipeg insulation firm hit with half-million dollar decision

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This article was published 23/05/2019 (1789 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg insulation company has been ordered to pay the Canada Revenue Agency close to $500,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties.

On Tuesday, Thermo Applicators Inc., and its president Robert Gray pleaded guilty to making false or deceptive statements for the tax years ranging from 2009 to 2014.

In a news release issued Thursday, the CRA said the company under-reported $1.1 million of taxable cash, evading $237,753 in income tax and GST.

Thermo Applicators has to pay back double that amount, plus interest and possibly penalties.

Gray also pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion, totalling $109,620 in personal expenses he wrote off in his own income-tax forms for 2009 and 2010.

They included a six-person family vacation to a fly-in fishing lodge, and construction costs on both Gray’s “waterfront cottage” near Kenora and “personal vacation villa” in Mexico, the CRA said.

Gray declined an interview request.

The CRA said between April 2013 and March 2018, courts convicted 307 Canadians of tax evasion, involving $134 million in unpaid federal taxes.

Fines for tax evasion range from half to double the amount of unpaid tax, and up to five years in jail.

The agency has come under scrutiny in recent years for going after small tax evaders instead of individuals and companies who park large amounts of cash in offshore bank accounts.

“Those who do not fully comply with tax laws place an unfair burden on law-abiding taxpayers and businesses and jeopardize the integrity of Canada’s tax base,” CRA said in the release.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca