Today is Income Tax Day, the deadline to file personal income tax returns with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Every once in a while, we at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation receive questions from Canadians asking if income tax is actually legal. It seems to be a recurring myth, that somehow one can wriggle out of paying income taxes due to some legal mumbo jumbo.

It isn’t true. You need to pay your taxes.

Earlier this year, a Winnipeg woman was sentenced to six months in jail (and a fine equal to the amount of tax she refused to pay) for evading $162,500 taxes over eight years after a judge rejected her claim that she was a “natural person” and thus protected from income tax. From a Winnipeg Sun article:

Chobotar refused to be identified by her name, claiming it referred to a “legal entity,” not the “flesh and blood woman” standing in court.

“There is no law that compels me to be identified by that name,” Chobotar told Judge Lynn Stannard. Chobotar is the first person in recent memory in Manitoba to be sentenced to real jail for tax evasion.

Crown attorney Rob Gosman said Chobotar’s “ridiculous antics” disentitled her to any consideration of a conditional sentence served in the community.

Former CTF Director Mark Milke wrote a great chapter in Tax Me, I’m Canadian debunking this myth. You can read that chapter here.

In the meantime, pay your taxes.