Unpaid federal taxes have nearly doubled to $18 billion since 1997 and Ottawa's tax collectors can't figure out why.
And of that $18 billion, the Canada Revenue Agency expects to get its hands on only $13.3 billion -- the rest is considered uncollectible, Auditor General Sheila Fraser said in Tuesday's report.
She expressed alarm that the total federal tax debt owed by individuals and businesses is growing faster than overall taxes collected by Ottawa.
In the past nine years, taxes brought in by the federal treasury rose 48 per cent, while the tax debt shot up by 88 per cent, according to Fraser's report.
Taxes or late-payment penalties are due on 3.3 million accounts, about 10 per cent of all the tax accounts handled by the federal government, according to the auditor general's officials.
Tuesday's report followed up on a 1994 audit in which the auditor general found the revenue agency's effort to collect tax debts was ineffective and based on inadequate information.
Despite employing 4,000 people with an annual budget of $215 million, officials responsible for tracking down tax deadbeats are unable to explain why the amount of tax debt is on the rise, Fraser said.
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