Dartmouth businessman gets six month conditional sentence and fined over $52,000 for tax evasion

June 9, 2020

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Canada Revenue Agency

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced that Arlington Smith of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, was sentenced on June 9, 2020, to a conditional sentence of six months and was fined a total of $52,716. Smith pleaded guilty on February 10, 2020, in Nova Scotia Provincial Court in Dartmouth, to one count of tax evasion under the Income Tax Act and one count of willful evasion of goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) under the Excise Tax Act. In addition to the criminal fine and sentence imposed on Smith, any affected parties will be subjected to civil reassessments including applicable penalties and interest.

A CRA investigation revealed that Smith and his wife operated a driveway paving and sealing company known as Sunshine Driveway Sealers. Smith failed to report net business income totalling $214,416 for the 2013 to 2016 taxation years. This unreported income resulted in the evasion of $50,410 in federal taxes. The investigation also identified $55,022 in unremitted GST/HST collected by Sunshine Driveway Sealers during the annual filing periods from 2013 to 2016.

All case-specific information above was obtained from the court records.

The CRA remains dedicated to maintaining the integrity of Canada’s tax system, and the social and economic well-being of Canadians during these unprecedented times. The CRA continues to aggressively pursue tax evasion, and false claims with all the tools available to them. The CRA is dedicated to ensuring that individuals and businesses claim income earned and losses to which they are entitled so that important benefit programs can be administered to those who need them. As a result of COVID-19, we are seeing the increased importance of these benefits, and are working to ensure that they continue to be available to Canadians. Any individual or business who underreports income, or claims losses or benefits that they are not entitled to, including ineligible claims related to new COVID-19 benefits, will face serious consequences.

The CRA has set up a free subscription service to help Canadians stay current on the CRA’s enforcement efforts.

Associated links

Contacts

Media Relations
Jeffrey Lansing
Canada Revenue Agency
902-233-5085
jeffrey.lansing@cra-arc.gc.ca

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