How to Tax a Billionaire

In 1991 an unnamed wealthy family–widely reported to be the Bronfmans–moved $2 billion out of Canada without having to pay the appropriate taxes. When CHO!CES, a Winnipeg-based social justice coalition, decided to take the federal government to court to force it to collect the tax, an amazing five-year odyssey through the legal and tax system was underway. A wild story of tenacious activists, public interest advocacy, and tax law.

AUTHOR

Doug Smith

Doug Smith has written or co-written ten books, including How To Tax a Billionaire: Project Loophole and the Campaign for Tax Fairness, Consulted to Death: How Canada’s Workplace Health and Safety System Fails Its Workers, and Joe Zucken: Citizen and Socialist, which won the Manitoba Historical Society’s Margaret McWilliams Award. “As Many Liars” was nominated for the 2003 Manitoba Book Awards’ Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-fiction.

Reviews

A compelling story of how the Mulroney government bent the law to spare a Canadian billionaire family hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, and how a gutsy citizen movement almost succeeded in making them pay. Provocative and well-told, How to Tax a Billionaire raises some powerful questions about the nature of Canadian democracy. – Linda McQuaig, author of Shooting the Hippo and Behind Closed Doors