“CPA Canada takes PM to task over remarks on accountants,” announced a recent release.

It’s worth reproducing the entire bulletin here:

• In the wake of the criticism over the Budget 2024 propose to increase the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused wealthy Canadians of “using accountants” to reduce their tax payments. In a recent letter to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) CPA Canada’s Vice-President of Tax John Oakey set out to clear the air on this hot topic. 
• “The Canadian accounting profession is built on the pillars of ethics and integrity,” the letter states. “We at CPA Canada — the national professional body representing some 220,000 CPAs — champion the important role accountants play in shaping our nation’s financial landscape.” 
• This includes both CPA Canada’s recent federal advice on capital gains and its long-standing push for a comprehensive review of Canada’s tax system to simplify the increasingly convoluted and difficult to comprehend rules. Our system is confusing even for seasoned tax professionals and as Oakey has written before, repairing tax law on the fly is never a good idea. When tax policy changes are seemingly beta-tested on the entire population, the result is rules upon rules upon rules, sometimes contradictory, sometimes not, but always adding layers of complexity.  
• “CPA Canada has long called for a comprehensive review of Canada’s tax system, urging for a robust framework that embodies simplicity, fairness, efficiency and competitiveness,” the letter to the PMO states. “[Our] principles guide our ongoing advocacy work with the federal government, including our pre-budget submission, which recommended that the government adhere to a principled approach to tax policy and administration that is driven by purpose and vision.” 
• “The goal of the letter to the PM is to usher in a change in attitude at the highest office in this country,” says Oakey. “When the prime minister uses our profession’s name in the way he did recently it pushed us to lay out the facts of what CPAs do and what we stand for.” 
• “Without the expertise of accountants to point out contradictions and to ensure newly minted regulations integrate well with older ones, the efforts by policymakers to strengthen tax policy and to halt avoidance may have precisely the opposite effect,” the letter states. “Complexity makes compliance difficult. CPAs understand the complexities involved in tax legislation and are dedicated to compliance and leadership in fostering a stable and transparent financial environment.” 
• “CPA Canada is ready to work with the government to refine our tax system,” says Oakey. “To address challenges and serve the best interests of Canadians. I hope the prime minister sees this going forward.”

Fair enough, but wealthy and not-so-wealthy Canadians alike do actually “use accountants” to reduce their taxes from what they might otherwise haplessly pay, don’t they? I couldn’t readily find a clip of the Prime Minister’s comments (I don’t even know if one exists) and so can only guess at the tone or context, but on CPA Canada’s own terms, they would seem to be an (albeit loose) statement of fact: given that the “system is confusing even for seasoned tax professionals,” using a CPA tax expert to ensure that one isn’t overlooking legitimate deductions, structures and so on would be more than reasonable (perhaps the missing tone and context would suggest Trudeau to have been implying the tax reduction practices are often shady or worse, but that’s not clear from the information provided here). That being the case, the CPA Canada release is unintentionally amusing in its outrage, like someone who loudly denounces a passer-by who accidentally stepped on his toe: in fact it’s an object lesson in how most points are better made with at least a little wit and lightness (for example, a better beginning might have been to mock-thank the Prime Minister for his interest in the profession before going on to make the substantive points). And the shots at the tax system’s over-complexity might not seem entirely convincing from a profession identified with the ever-growing body of hardly simple accounting standards and their attendant materials (bases for conclusions, IFRIC agenda decisions and so forth).

To the extent the release was noticed at all, I also wonder what it would do to shore up the profession’s somewhat challenged image. The feistiness might be appealing; the air of defensiveness probably not as much. My guess is that the net effect falls on the negative side of the ledger: a profession that’s sure of itself doesn’t need to sound off about minor perceived slights. And, sadly, one assumes that Prime Minister Trudeau, if he ever read the letter that was sent him, didn’t feel particularly taken to task (let alone inspired to get to work on immediately simplifying the tax system). But since most commentators believe Trudeau to be approaching the tail-end of his final term in office, it’s understandable if he just decided to leave that work for his successor…

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.