44 Best Thought Leaders on Tax Strategy in Canada

Last updated: June 2026

Canada is in one of the most active periods of tax reform in a generation. The federal government delivered Budget 2025 under the "Canada Strong" banner, advancing legislation across income tax, transfer pricing, clean economy incentives, mandatory disclosure rules, and charities regulation. Parliament enacted new transfer pricing rules aligning Canadian law with OECD guidelines. The capital gains inclusion rate increase was abandoned, the digital services tax was repealed, and SR&ED tax credits received their most significant expansion in over a decade. As of June 2026, the voices shaping how Canadians understand all of this have never been more important to follow.

Canada generated approximately $510.95 billion in total tax revenue during the 2024-2025 fiscal period, with personal income taxes accounting for $234.3 billion and corporate taxes contributing approximately $97 billion. The country's top combined marginal rates exceed 53 per cent in provinces such as Ontario and Nova Scotia. These are not abstract numbers. They represent real decisions that millions of Canadians and thousands of businesses are making every day, and the quality of advice and analysis available to navigate them directly shapes those decisions.

This directory brings together 44 thought leaders doing the most consequential public work in Canadian tax strategy, planning, and policy in 2026. They are academics building the intellectual case for reform. They are practitioners navigating the daily complexity of advising families, owner-managers, and multinational corporations. They are educators translating the Income Tax Act into language real people can act on. They are advocates on both sides of the fairness debate, podcast hosts, litigators, and the institutional leaders who hold the profession together.

What they share is a commitment to working in public, putting their thinking where it can be tested, challenged, and built upon. This is not a list of the biggest names in the profession. It is a list of the voices most worth following if you want to understand where Canadian tax is going and who is shaping it.

If your leadership team needs help navigating the people and organisational challenges that accompany major tax transformation, whether building alignment around a new tax operating model, improving how decisions are made under uncertainty, or facilitating the executive conversation that turns external thinking into internal action, book Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, to work with your team. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why Does Tax Strategy in Canada Matter?

Tax strategy in Canada matters because the decisions made by practitioners, policymakers, and advocates do not stay inside boardrooms. They reach into every farm, every small business, and every family making decisions about retirement savings, business succession, and the next generation's wealth. Canada's tax gap, the estimated difference between what is owed and what is paid, falls between $18.1 billion and $23.4 billion according to CRA data through fiscal year 2018, a figure that points to both the scale of non-compliance and the complexity that enables it.

Roughly 1.2 million Canadians fail to file tax returns annually, many of them at risk of missing out on income-tested benefits they are entitled to. C.D. Howe Institute research published in April 2026 by Alexandre Laurin found that Ottawa's expansion of automatic filing would not reach the hardest-to-engage non-filers, calling for policies that directly address the structural barriers faced by those outside the system. Canada rose from 14th to 13th in the 2025 International Tax Competitiveness Index, a modest improvement reflecting the cancellation of the capital gains inclusion rate increase and the abolition of the digital services tax.

But economists across the political spectrum agree that Canada's tax system has accumulated complexity over decades that now imposes genuine economic costs. The C.D. Howe Institute's March 2026 "Big Bang Tax Reform" proposal, co-authored by Jack Mintz, Alexandre Laurin, and Nicholas Dahir, called for a sweeping, revenue-neutral restructuring of Canada's federal tax system to stimulate investment and restore competitiveness. The progressive case made by Canadians for Tax Fairness pushes in a different direction, arguing that the system's complexity disproportionately benefits those wealthy enough to navigate it.

The thought leaders on this list are the people actively working to improve the system, defend clients within it, explain it to those who must navigate it, and hold it accountable when it falls short. For organisations whose leadership teams face major tax transformation, Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast (230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries), helps executive teams align, communicate, and execute through periods of rapid change. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

For more on global tax strategy voices, see my blog post '50 Essential Global Thought Leaders on Tax Strategy' at:

https://www.consultclarity.org/post/global-thought-leaders-tax-strategy

How This List Was Compiled

This directory was assembled through research across the Canadian Tax Foundation's conference programmes and publications, International Tax Review's World Tax rankings for Canada, academic faculty lists at leading Canadian law schools and economics departments, professional organisation platforms including CPA Canada, STEP Canada, and the International Fiscal Association's Canadian branch, and sustained review of LinkedIn and published output across the Canadian tax profession in 2025 and 2026. Candidates were assessed on credentials in the field, the depth of their public contribution, geographic diversity across provinces, and active engagement with the professional conversation in 2025 and 2026.

Private Client, Owner-Manager, and Small Business Specialists

The owner-manager tax planning space is where most Canadians with private corporations encounter the most significant tax complexity, from the small business deduction to income splitting rules, estate planning, and business succession. The thought leaders in this category produce some of the most practically useful and widely read tax content in Canada.

1. Kim G.C. Moody

Founder of Moodys Private Client and the force behind one of Canada's most prolific tax communication platforms, Kim G.C. Moody brings over 30 years of specialist experience in tax and estate planning for owner-managers of private corporations and executives. His weekly 1-1-1 Newsletter, covering one issue each in taxation, leadership, and economics, reaches thousands of subscribers every Wednesday. His weekly columns in the Financial Post and his "In the Mood With Kim G.C. Moody" podcast give him a breadth of public reach that few Canadian tax professionals can match.

Moody holds the FCPA, FCA, TEP designations and brings deep expertise in Canada-US tax matters for private clients. His 2020 book Making Life Less Taxing made the case for a simpler, more accountable Canadian tax system. His contribution to the public conversation is grounded in a specific view: that tax complexity in Canada has grown to the point of harming the very people it is supposed to serve, particularly entrepreneurs and owner-managers. His commentary on Budget 2025 and the Carney government's early tax moves continues to offer practitioners and business owners a readable, well-sourced perspective on where the system is heading.

2. Kenneth Keung

Few tax professionals in Canada have assembled a credentials profile as comprehensive as Kenneth Keung's. CPA, CA, CPA (CO, USA), CFP, TEP, LLB, and MTax, he currently serves as a senior tax advisor at Doane Grant Thornton and has been appointed by CPA Canada as Vice-Chair of the CBA/CPA Canada Joint Committee on Taxation, the body that interacts directly with the Department of Finance and CRA on proposed tax legislation. He chairs STEP Canada's National Tax Technical Committee and has held key roles with CPA Canada, the Canadian Tax Foundation, and other professional bodies.

His practical thought leadership spans corporate, trust, and cross-border tax planning, M&A, and succession strategies. He is a regular instructor for CPA Canada's In-Depth Tax Program and a frequent co-author of Doane Grant Thornton's federal budget analysis. His LinkedIn posts on trust reporting requirements, budget changes, and the practical compliance pressures facing advisors and clients are consistently substantive. He received the Calgary Top 40 Under 40 recognition earlier in his career and represents the next generation of senior Canadian tax leadership.

3. Hugh Neilson

Hugh Neilson FCPA, FCA, TEP is one of the most respected tax educators and practitioners in Western Canada, practising as an independent contractor to KRP Group in Edmonton while serving on a remarkable range of national committees. He is Chair of CPA Canada's Small and Medium Practitioners Tax Committee, CPA Canada Co-Chair of the CPA Canada-CRA Service Committee, and a former Governor of the Canadian Tax Foundation. His recognition as the 2014 recipient of CPA Canada's Award for Excellence in Income Tax reflects a career built around advancing the quality of tax practice across the profession.

Neilson's contribution to the public conversation is concentrated in practitioner education and the pragmatic interpretation of new tax rules. His Video Tax News affiliation brings his analysis to thousands of Canadian tax professionals through the annual Tax Update courses. His LinkedIn posts on trust reporting requirements, underused housing tax, and budget changes in 2025 and 2026 are substantive and frequently cited by other practitioners, providing clarity that busy advisors need when new obligations arrive with short timelines.

4. Cory Litzenberger

Cory G. Litzenberger, CPA, CMA, CFP, C.Mgr is the founder of CGL Tax in Red Deer, Alberta, and one of the most consistently outspoken advocates for small business owners in the Canadian tax conversation. His LinkedIn posts translate complicated legislative changes into accessible language without sacrificing technical accuracy, a combination that has made him a trusted voice for practitioners and business owners navigating the system from outside the major urban centres.

His reputation for early identification of problematic tax legislation dates back to the 2017 private corporation proposals, and he has been referenced in keynote presentations at major accounting conferences and cited on TaxTips.ca. His "Escape Room" series of articles, applying game-design metaphors to complex new tax rules, has become one of the more distinctive formats in Canadian tax commentary. His willingness to name problems directly has made him an important voice in the conversation about how legislation affects real businesses.

5. Stefanie Ricchio

Stefanie Ricchio, CPA, CGA is the founder of SRBC Inc. and one of Canada's most active tax educators reaching entrepreneurs and incorporated business owners. An award-winning thought leader, she has been recognised for her expertise in corporate tax compliance, financial systems, and digital transformation, and has spoken at major Canadian business events including WebSummit Vancouver 2026, where her corporate tax masterclass drew over 600 registrants.

Her content focuses on the practical tax decisions that confront small and medium-sized business owners, owner-managers, and incorporated professionals, including T2 filing obligations, shareholder loan traps, and the tax implications of incorporation. Her regular LinkedIn posts in 2025 and 2026 are among the most widely shared in the Canadian corporate tax space for business audiences, and her partnerships with institutions including TurboTax Business have expanded her reach well beyond the professional adviser community.

6. John Oakey

John F. Oakey, FCPA, FCA, TEP, CC brings a perspective that is rare in the Canadian tax conversation: over two decades of practitioner experience in Atlantic Canada combined with national institutional leadership at CPA Canada. Now serving as tax leader with the AC Group in Atlantic Canada and continuing as a spokesperson and senior advisor for CPA Canada, Oakey was the Vice-President of Tax at CPA Canada and is one of the profession's most trusted translators of federal budget changes for the wider practitioner community.

His October 2025 Globe and Mail commentary calling for an overhaul of Canada's tax system laid out the case that decades of piecemeal, reactive changes had produced a framework increasingly difficult to navigate and administer. That piece, written as author of a forthcoming CPA Canada white paper on tax system modernisation, crystallised a call that CPAs across the country had been making for years. His continuing involvement in CPA Canada's tax committees and working groups makes him an essential voice for anyone tracking the institutional case for systemic reform.

Large Corporate, M&A, and Tax Litigation Practitioners

The practitioners in this category represent the cutting edge of corporate tax advisory in Canada, navigating M&A, cross-border transactions, transfer pricing, and the growing frontier of tax controversy.

7. Raj Juneja

Raj Juneja is the co-head of McCarthy Tetrault's national tax practice, based in Toronto, and is widely regarded as one of the strongest tax practitioners in Canada. Chambers Canada consistently ranks him in Band 1, with client descriptions including "one of the strongest tax practitioners I have worked with," "technically excellent," and "extremely rapid and commercial problem solver." His practice centres on the tax aspects of major commercial transactions, with particular strength in the energy and mining sectors.

His active engagement through McCarthy Tetrault's Tax Perspectives series, including the firm's September 2025 national tour covering trust reporting, mandatory disclosure rules, and Pillar Two guidance, keeps him consistently visible in the practitioner community. His co-authored 2025 Federal Budget Commentary has become one of the most widely-circulated budget analyses in the Canadian corporate tax market.

8. Matthew Kraemer

Matthew Kraemer is a Partner in McCarthy Tetrault's National Tax Group who co-authored a major International Tax Review analysis in May 2026 identifying Canada as being in "an exceptionally active period of tax reform." That piece, written with colleagues Adam Unick and Justin Ng, provided one of the clearest practitioner-facing summaries of where Canadian tax legislation stood heading into the second half of 2026, covering mandatory disclosure rules, Pillar Two implementation, clean economy incentives, and enhanced trust reporting obligations.

Kraemer's work covers the full spectrum of income and indirect tax planning, transfer pricing, and tax disputes, with a particular focus on the legislative changes that have compelled organisations to rethink their compliance frameworks. His public writing through the Tax Perspectives series and in international publications gives him visibility beyond the private client relationship.

9. Adam Unick

Adam Unick is a Partner in McCarthy Tetrault's National Tax Group whose co-authorship of the ITR Canada reform analysis and the firm's Tax Perspectives national tour content places him among the most publicly visible practitioners advising on Canada's current reform cycle. His practice spans corporate and transactional tax advisory work, including complex cross-border structures and the Pillar Two compliance questions that are increasingly consuming the attention of multinational enterprise tax teams with Canadian operations.

10. Anu Nijhawan

Anu Nijhawan is a partner in and National Co-Head of the Bennett Jones Tax Department, a Chambers Canada Band 1 tax lawyer, and as of December 2024 the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Canadian Tax Foundation. She also serves as Vice-Chair of the Joint Committee on Taxation of CPA Canada and the Canadian Bar Association, a body that provides direct technical feedback on tax legislation to the Department of Finance.

Her practice encompasses the income tax aspects of corporate and partnership reorganisations, mergers and acquisitions, resource taxation, and international structures for Canadian-based multinationals. Nijhawan's institutional engagement, spanning the CTF, the Joint Committee, and client advisory work on Canada's most significant transactions, makes her one of the most consequential connectors in the Canadian tax profession.

11. Pooja Mihailovich

Pooja Mihailovich is a partner at Blake, Cassels and Graydon LLP (Blakes) where she co-leads the Tax Controversy and Litigation group. She has appeared before all levels of court in Canada including the Supreme Court, is the "Lawyer of the Year" (Tax Law, Toronto) 2023 per Best Lawyers, an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall, and a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Tax on Canadian tax controversy and transfer pricing developments.

Her December 2025 "2025 Tax Controversy Year in Review" is one of the most comprehensive practitioner-facing summaries of the year in Canadian tax litigation, covering the government's pivot away from controversial policies, the evolving CRA audit environment, and forthcoming Supreme Court guidance on statutory interpretation. Her November 2025 Bloomberg Tax analysis of Canada's proposed transfer pricing reforms and her June 2026 piece on the OECD buffer for Canada's new transfer pricing framework have established her as the most publicly active voice on Canadian tax controversy in 2025 and 2026.

12. Natalie Worsfold

Natalie Worsfold is the Managing Partner of Counter Tax Litigators LLP, a firm that holds the distinction of being included in the ITR World Tax Rankings alongside firms such as Thorsteinssons, Gowling, BLG, and Aird and Berlis. Counter Tax's inclusion in a field dominated by larger practices reflects the firm's singular focus on tax controversy involving mature and financially successful companies, and Worsfold's leadership has been central to building that reputation from a boutique foundation.

13. Francois Barette

Francois Barette is a tax law consultant in Fasken's Montreal office who has been recognised in the International Tax Review's "Highly Regarded" category for Canada in 2025 and 2026, and in Best Lawyers in Canada for Tax Law since 2009. His practice spans corporate and international tax, tax litigation, and estate and personal tax planning, with significant activity in the Quebec market. His consistent recognition across multiple independent ranking publications over more than 15 years reflects a practitioner whose depth in both the Quebec and national tax landscapes has made him an enduring reference point.

International Tax, Clean Economy, and National Firm Leaders

This category covers the voices shaping how Canada engages with global tax reform, transfer pricing, and the rapidly expanding world of clean economy investment tax credits, as well as the national firm leaders delivering this expertise at scale.

14. Laura Gheorghiu

Laura Gheorghiu is a partner and Practice Group Leader, Tax, in Gowling WLG's Montreal office, and one of the most consistently published voices in Canada on clean economy investment tax credits and cross-border tax planning. She hosted Gowling WLG's November 2025 Energy Innovators Roundtable on Canada's five main clean economy ITCs and authored a detailed January 2026 article summarising practical application of those credits following the CTF Annual Tax Conference. Her June 2025 Financial Post commentary on US retaliatory tax proposals placed her at the centre of the Canada-US tax tension that dominated the early 2026 corporate tax conversation.

Her practice focuses on M&A, cross-border investment structures, corporate reorganisations, private equity funds, and the emerging frontier of technology taxation. She is a Councillor on the IFA Canadian Branch and a regular CTF presenter. She practises in both English and French, making her one of the most accessible voices bridging the Quebec and national practitioner communities.

15. Malya Amghar

Malya Amghar is a partner in Gowling WLG's Montreal Tax Group, appointed to the partnership in January 2024, and has quickly built a profile as an active voice in the international tax community. She is a Councillor on the International Fiscal Association's Canadian Branch, moderated a panel at the IFA Canada 2026 Annual Conference in Calgary, and attended the IFA 2025 World Congress in Lisbon. Her practice focuses on business tax planning, international tax law, and cross-border restructurings, with experience in M&A and the tax implications of digital economy transactions.

Her bilingual (English and French) practice, her IFA engagement, and her active LinkedIn presence make her a compelling voice for practitioners tracking how international tax norms are landing in Canadian law and how multinationals investing in Canada are adapting their structures to the post-Pillar-Two environment.

16. Michael Atlas

Michael Atlas operates an independent specialist practice in Toronto focused primarily on international tax planning, and his written and spoken commentary has given him a reputation among practitioners as one of Canada's most reliable sources on the technical complexities of cross-border planning. His extensive writing and professional presentations, conducted over decades of practice, have made him a sought-after resource for other accountants navigating situations where the interaction of Canadian tax law with international norms is the critical question.

17. John J. Lennard

John J. Lennard is a Partner in Stikeman Elliott's National Tax Group and an active LinkedIn voice commenting on Canadian federal budget developments, trust reporting rules, and the mandatory disclosure regime. Stikeman Elliott's tax heritage traces to its founding as a tax boutique in Montreal in 1952, and Lennard's work within that practice carries forward a tradition of technically grounded corporate tax advisory that has shaped Canadian tax law for over 70 years. His LinkedIn posts sharing the firm's national tax group analysis in real time during Budget 2025 and subsequent legislative developments reflect the kind of practitioner communication that has become essential during the current period of intense legislative activity.

18. Amanjit (Am) Lidder

Amanjit (Am) Lidder, FCPA, FCA is the Senior Vice President and National Leader of Tax Services at MNP, where she oversees the strategic direction of a tax practice spanning 800-plus specialists in over 128 offices across Canada. Under her leadership over the past five years, MNP's tax revenue has increased two-fold and the size of its tax team has grown by almost 80 per cent. She chairs MNP's Tax Executive Committee and has testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance on diverse tax-related topics.

Her practical authority in the mid-market and owner-managed business space gives her perspective on what matters most to the majority of Canadian businesses navigating tax. As the first female and first member of a visible minority ever elected as a Partner at MNP, she has also been a visible leader in the profession's broader conversation about diversity and inclusion. To discuss how Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), supports professional services firm leadership teams, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

19. Ameer Abdulla

Ameer Abdulla is a Tax Partner at EY Canada with responsibility for the Ontario market, named as one of EY's nine national tax spokespeople for the 2026 provincial budget season. His inclusion in this national group reflects the calibre of his advisory work and his ability to provide the kind of public-facing commentary that positions a firm's tax practice as an authoritative resource during budget season.

20. Stephane Leblanc

Stephane Leblanc is EY Canada's Tax Partner for Quebec, included in the firm's 2026 national budget commentary roster. His Quebec-based practice gives him specific depth in the intersection of federal and provincial tax obligations that is particularly complex in that jurisdiction, where Revenu Quebec operates a parallel tax administration and distinct provincial rules govern many planning decisions.

21. Adam Seliski

Adam Seliski is EY Canada's Tax Partner for British Columbia, included in the firm's 2026 national budget commentary roster. His BC-based practice covers the particular tax planning considerations that arise in a province identified by the Fraser Institute in March 2026 as having the fourth-highest top personal income tax rate in Canada or the United States, with ongoing questions about investment competitiveness relative to neighbouring jurisdictions.

Tax Policy Academics and Institutional Researchers

The academics and think-tank researchers in this category are producing the intellectual architecture of the next round of Canadian tax reform. Their work combines technical rigour with policy relevance and shapes the options available to governments when change becomes necessary.

22. Jack Mintz

Jack Mintz, CM, is the President's Fellow at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy and the most publicly active tax policy academic in Canada. He has been a weekly contributor to the Financial Post for years, is a Senior Fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, and a research fellow at the International Tax and Investment Centre in Washington, CESIfo Germany, and Oxford's Centre of Business Taxation. He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2015 for his service to the Canadian tax policy community.

His March 2026 co-authored "Big Bang Tax Reform" report with Alexandre Laurin and Nicholas Dahir at C.D. Howe proposed the most comprehensive restructuring of Canada's federal tax system in decades, moving away from income taxes toward consumption taxes and removing barriers to capital formation. The report generated significant media coverage and contributed directly to the political conversation about Canadian tax competitiveness.

23. Alexandre Laurin

Alexandre Laurin is Vice-President and Director of Research at the C.D. Howe Institute and the organisation's most prolific tax policy researcher. His June 2025 six-point productivity-focused tax reform plan and his April 2026 analysis of the limits of automatic tax filing are examples of research that consistently combines technical precision with practical policy relevance. He co-authored the 2025 Shadow Budget with Don Drummond and William B.P. Robson.

His significance lies in the institutional position he occupies. As Director of Research at Canada's most widely cited independent economic policy institute, his work reaches federal and provincial policymakers, parliamentary committees, and the media commentary that shapes public opinion on tax reform. His April 2026 finding that roughly 1.2 million Canadians fail to file tax returns annually, and that automatic filing would not reach the hardest-to-engage non-filers, is the kind of counter-intuitive, evidence-based finding the policy conversation needs.

24. Trevor Tombe

Trevor Tombe is a Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and Director of Fiscal and Economic Policy at the School of Public Policy, as well as Co-Director of Finances of the Nation, the leading online platform for Canadian public finance data and analysis. His research spans international trade, public finance, macroeconomics, and fiscal federalism.

His 2024 analysis of a separate Alberta pension plan and his ongoing commentary on federal-provincial fiscal dynamics have placed him at the centre of one of the most politically charged tax policy debates in recent Canadian history. His regular contributions to Finances of the Nation using Budget 2025 projections and the site's debt sustainability tools provide one of the most accessible windows into Canada's longer-term fiscal trajectory.

25. Lindsay Tedds

Lindsay M. Tedds is one of Canada's leading experts on tax policy design, implementation, and administration, with deep experience advising federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments on income taxation, municipal finance, and fiscal federalism. She is a Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and Scientific Director of Fiscal and Economic Policy at the School of Public Policy, and co-leads INCLUSIECON with Gillian Petit.

Her work on the Canada Disability Benefit, which argued for delivery through the income tax system, became directly relevant as that legislation moved through Parliament. Her regular publications in the Canadian Tax Journal, Canadian Public Policy, and Osgoode Hall Law Journal make her one of the most prolific academic contributors to the published tax policy conversation in Canada.

26. Bev Dahlby

Bev Dahlby is a Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute and a Research Fellow at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, and one of Canada's most respected economists working on the analysis of fiscal transfers, equalization, and tax policy. He is a member of C.D. Howe's Fiscal and Tax Competitiveness Council and has been a consistent voice on the economics of intergovernmental fiscal relations and the marginal cost of public funds.

His co-authored evaluation of federal transfers to the provinces in the Finances of the Nation series is a substantive contribution to understanding how Canada's fiscal architecture works and why its reform is both necessary and politically difficult. His career-long focus on the economic underpinnings of tax decisions gives him a distinctive analytical lens that complements the more practitioner-facing voices on this list.

27. Don Drummond

Don Drummond is a Stauffer-Dunning Fellow and Adjunct Professor at Queen's University's School of Policy Studies and a Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute, where he co-authored the 2025 Shadow Budget with Alexandre Laurin and William B.P. Robson. A former Associate Deputy Minister of Finance Canada and Chief Economist at TD Bank, he brings a depth of public sector fiscal experience that gives his commentary on Canadian tax reform credibility with political audiences.

28. David Duff

David G. Duff is Professor of Law and Director of the Tax LLM Program at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, where he has taught and written in tax law and policy for over 25 years. He is the primary author of Canadian Income Tax Law, has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in its GAAR decision, and is an International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.

His research spans tax law and policy, corporate and international taxation, environmental taxation, and distributive justice. His articles on tax avoidance and the interpretation of tax legislation are among the most cited in the Canadian tax law literature. Canada's west coast tax community has few voices of comparable academic weight.

Social and Equity-Focused Tax Researchers

29. Frances Woolley

Frances Woolley is a Professor of Economics at Carleton University where she has taught public finance and labour economics since 1990. Her PhD from the London School of Economics and her research on economic models of family decision-making, tax policy, and intergenerational justice have made her one of the most distinctive analytical voices in Canadian fiscal policy.

Her commentary has addressed how Canada's tax system treats families, the equity implications of personal tax credits, and the labour market dimensions of tax design. Her service as secretary-treasurer and president of the Canadian Economics Association and her editorial roles across multiple peer-reviewed journals signal a career built at the intersection of rigorous research and public engagement.

30. Gillian Petit

Gillian Petit is a researcher at INCLUSIECON and the University of Calgary, working alongside Lindsay Tedds on a sustained programme of research into how tax and fiscal policy shapes equity, access, and wellbeing in Canada. Her co-authored work in the Canadian Tax Journal, including a 2026 analysis of the federal basic personal amount and personal tax credits examining who actually benefits from credits designed decades ago, represents the kind of technical distributional analysis that is often missing from public debates about tax fairness.

Her collaboration with Tedds, Jennifer Robson, and others on the Canada Disability Benefit and automatic tax filing gives her research direct policy application. Her active research output in 2025 and 2026 places her among the most productive emerging voices in Canadian tax policy.

31. Jennifer Robson

Jennifer Robson is an Associate Professor at the Kroeger College of Public Affairs at Carleton University and an applied researcher on social and tax policy. Her work focuses on the financial lives of low- and modest-income Canadians, spanning education savings, tax administration, parental benefits, wealth inequality, poverty, and administrative burden. As a contributor to Finances of the Nation and a co-author with Lindsay Tedds on multiple articles in the Canadian Tax Journal and Osgoode Hall Law Journal, she brings a consistent focus on who the tax system is not reaching.

Her 2021 Policy Forum piece in the Canadian Tax Journal, arguing that the CRA should be reconceived as a social benefits agency rather than purely a tax collector, was one of the more conceptually significant contributions to the debate about how Canada delivers income support. Her research has informed reforms to extended employment insurance and continues to shape how policymakers think about the role of the tax system in reducing poverty.

32. Grady Munro

Grady Munro is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Fraser Institute whose research covers government spending, debt, taxation, and labour policy. His November 2025 study measuring tax progressivity in Canada and his December 2025 update of the OECD-wide tax progressivity comparison provide some of the most frequently cited data on where Canada's tax burden falls relative to peer countries. His commentary in major Canadian newspapers including the Globe and Mail, Financial Post, and Toronto Sun gives him a consistent public presence in the fiscal policy debate.

33. Milagros Palacios

Milagros Palacios is the Director for the Addington Centre for Measurement at the Fraser Institute and a prolific co-author of its tax and fiscal research. She is co-author of the November 2025 study measuring tax progressivity across OECD countries and the July 2025 study on progressivity in Canada's tax system. Her measurement focus and the methodological rigour she brings to comparative tax analysis give her research a defensible foundation that makes it difficult to dismiss even for those who disagree with the Institute's policy conclusions.

34. Jason Clemens

Jason Clemens is Executive Vice-President of the Fraser Institute and a frequent co-author of its tax and fiscal policy research, including the November 2025 analysis of tax progressivity across OECD countries. His work consistently documents where Canada's tax burden falls relative to comparable countries and makes the case that high marginal rates discourage labour supply, investment, and risk-taking in ways that compound over time. His commentary in the Globe and Mail, Financial Post, and National Post brings data-driven fiscal analysis to a broadly educated general audience.

Tax Advocates and Policy Voices

35. Brigitte Alepin

Brigitte Alepin is a Harvard-trained tax specialist, Professor of Taxation at the Universite du Quebec en Outaouais, and the co-founder of TaxCOOP, the international forum she established to promote a neutral global discussion on tax competition and reform. She has been named to the International Tax Review's Global Tax 50 among the 50 most influential tax personalities in the world, has testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance on more than 12 occasions, and has served as special advisor to the National Assembly of Quebec and multiple international organisations.

Her book Ces riches qui ne paient pas d'impot, published in 2003, initiated a parliamentary inquiry into tax havens in Canada and remains one of the most consequential pieces of tax advocacy writing in Canadian history. Her co-written documentary The Price We Pay won a Prix Gemeaux Award for best scenario for a documentary. Her current research and ongoing TaxCOOP work place her at the intersection of domestic Quebec tax reform advocacy and global minimum tax debate, a breadth of engagement rare in the practitioner and academic communities.

36. Toby Sanger

Toby Sanger is the former Executive Director of Canadians for Tax Fairness and a widely respected Canadian economist with over 30 years of experience, including previous roles as economist for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, chief economist for the Yukon, and principal economic adviser to the Ontario Minister of Finance. His LinkedIn commentary in 2025 on the Carney government's abandonment of progressive tax measures was direct and well-reasoned, reflecting the perspective of an advocate who believes the tax system should do more to address wealth inequality and corporate tax avoidance.

37. DT Cochrane

DT Cochrane is a research economist with Canadians for Tax Fairness whose graduate training in economics and social and political thought has produced a distinctive body of work on corporate power and corporate tax strategy. His research consistently examines the gap between the tax obligations corporations formally face and the amounts they actually pay, a focus that places him at the intersection of economic analysis and accountability journalism.

38. Katrina Miller

Katrina Miller serves as Interim Executive Director of Canadians for Tax Fairness, the organisation that has become Canada's most persistent institutional voice for progressive tax reform. Her leadership during a period of significant federal tax policy change, including the capital gains inclusion rate debate, the digital services tax repeal, and ongoing pressure for stronger anti-avoidance measures, places her at the front of a conversation that is far from settled.

Canadians for Tax Fairness has consistently provided the counterweight perspective in budget debates dominated by business competitiveness arguments, and Miller's direction of that advocacy during 2025 and 2026 gives her institutional significance that extends beyond her direct research output.

39. Aaron Wudrick

Aaron Wudrick is Director of the Domestic Policy Program at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa. A lawyer by training and formerly the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, he is one of the most consistently cited voices arguing for lower taxes, reduced government spending, and fiscal accountability. His regular appearances in Policy Options, national media, and legislative hearings make him an important participant in the current conversation about whether Canada's fiscal trajectory is sustainable.

His commentary on the Carney government's 2025 and 2026 fiscal approach reflects the perspective of an advocate who believes Canada's spending and tax trajectory is inconsistent with long-term economic resilience. His presence provides an important counterpoint to the advocacy voices arguing for higher taxation and more aggressive redistribution.

Tax Educators and Institutional Leaders

40. Heather L. Evans

Heather L. Evans, LLB, LLM is the Executive Director and CEO of the Canadian Tax Foundation, the organisation with over 13,000 members that has been Canada's leading source of insight on tax issues since 1945. Before joining the CTF, she was a partner with Deloitte LLP and National Managing Partner, Tax, leading a team of 1,200 professionals. Her decade of leadership at the CTF has spanned from the 2017 private corporation reforms through to the Pillar Two implementation and the current period of active legislative change.

Her institutional significance extends to her role in shaping what the CTF annual conference, its publications, and its working groups address each year. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect. Whether virtual or face to face, organisations looking to improve how their tax leadership teams work together can reach out to jonno@consultclarity.org.

41. Evelyn Jacks

Evelyn Jacks is the Founder and President of Knowledge Bureau, Canada's leading financial education institute for professionals in the tax and financial services, and the author of 55 books on tax preparation and financial planning. She has been named one of Canada's Top 25 Women of Influence twice, appointed to the Federal Task Force on Financial Literacy by former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, and received the Rotman School of Business Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Her Real Tax News podcast through 2025 and her regular commentary in MoneySense and on BNN, CBC, and Global make her the most widely-reaching tax educator in Canada for consumers and small business owners. Her ability to translate complex tax rules into accessible, action-oriented guidance fills a gap that purely practitioner-focused voices cannot.

42. Joseph Devaney

Joseph Devaney, CPA, CA is a co-lead instructor for the Video Tax News annual Tax Update series, one of the most widely attended tax education programmes in Canada for practitioners. His 2026 Tax Update course, delivered alongside Caitlin Butler and Kenneth Keung, provides practitioners from BC to the Atlantic provinces with a structured annual review of legislative and administrative changes. His presence as a lead educator for thousands of Canadian tax professionals gives him an influence on practitioner quality that extends well beyond the individual advisory relationship.

43. Caitlin Butler

Caitlin Butler, CPA, CA is a tax specialist and co-lead instructor for the Video Tax News programme who focuses on personal and corporate tax matters for the owner-managed business person. She is a member of the Video Tax News Editorial Board and regularly authors and edits publications and presents courses to thousands of professionals annually. Her particular focus on the tax issues most relevant to small and owner-managed business owners makes her courses among the most practically useful in the annual professional development calendar for Canadian practitioners.

44. Amanda Doucette

Amanda Doucette is the host of The Tax Chick Podcast, a practitioner-facing podcast on trusts, estates, and tax that covers the intersection of personal and corporate planning with a specific focus on the STEP community. Based in Saskatchewan, where STEP Saskatchewan made history in 2025 as the first Chapter in Canada to achieve full branch status, she has built one of the most distinctive voices in Canadian tax education through a podcast that regularly features the country's most respected trust and estate planning practitioners.

Her 2026 episodes on the trust life cycle, cross-border properties and estates, and the estate and trust issues arising from the federal budget provide practitioners with the kind of specialised, practitioner-to-practitioner insight that formal CPD programmes rarely deliver. The Tax Chick Podcast fills a genuine gap in the public conversation about one of the most complex areas of Canadian tax planning.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Some voices are so familiar they appear on every list in the professional services and finance space. Rather than recycling those names, this list deliberately concentrated on the voices who are doing the most consequential work specifically within the Canadian tax conversation. Several practitioners at the Big Four firms and Canada's Seven Sisters law firms whose public output is concentrated in client-facing channels rather than public commentary also came close, as did emerging voices in cannabis taxation, crypto tax, and tax technology who have not yet built the track record of public contribution that would merit inclusion in this 2026 directory.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The most common mistake Canadians and their organisations make with tax strategy is treating it as a filing exercise rather than a year-round planning exercise. The decisions that most significantly affect tax outcomes, including whether and when to incorporate, how to structure compensation between salary and dividends, when to trigger capital gains, and how to structure cross-border activity, are almost never optimised at tax time. By the time a return is being prepared, the window for most of the most valuable strategies has closed.

A second common mistake is treating the provinces as afterthoughts. The interaction between federal and provincial tax law is one of the most genuinely complex features of the Canadian system, and the combined top marginal rates that exceed 53 per cent in Ontario and Nova Scotia mean that provincial rate differentials are significant enough to drive real structural decisions about where businesses operate and where people live. The practitioners and researchers on this list navigate these differentials daily, and following their commentary is one of the most efficient ways to understand where the pressure points are.

A third mistake is ignoring the connection between estate planning and tax planning. The most significant tax events in many Canadians' lives happen at death or at the transfer of a business, not during annual filing. Trust planning, succession structures, and the design of shareholder agreements are tax decisions as much as legal ones, and the voices in this directory who specialise in the intersection of trust, estate, and corporate tax, including Kenneth Keung, Amanda Doucette, and Hugh Neilson, are among the most valuable to follow on this front.

Implementation Guide

The most direct way to use this list is to follow the people on it on LinkedIn and to read their public output systematically. Kim G.C. Moody's 1-1-1 Newsletter and Financial Post articles, Lindsay Tedds' and Trevor Tombe's publications through Finances of the Nation, and the monthly bulletins from Gowling WLG, McCarthy Tetrault, Blakes, and Stikeman Elliott are all available free of charge and provide excellent orientation to the Canadian tax landscape as it is actually developing in real time.

A more targeted approach is to match thought leaders to your specific planning needs. If you are an owner-manager navigating the small business deduction or compensation planning, Kim G.C. Moody, Cory Litzenberger, and Stefanie Ricchio offer the most practically oriented public commentary. If you are a CFO at a publicly traded company tracking Pillar Two and transfer pricing, Pooja Mihailovich's Bloomberg Tax commentary, Matthew Kraemer and Adam Unick's Tax Perspectives analysis, and Laura Gheorghiu's clean economy ITC coverage are essential reading. If you are advising on trusts and estates, Hugh Neilson, Kenneth Keung, and Amanda Doucette cover the most significant recent developments.

Attending the Canadian Tax Foundation's annual conference is one of the most efficient ways to hear from many of the voices on this list in a single forum. The CTF's 78th Annual Tax Conference is currently in planning for later in 2026, with the CRA Roundtable session open for question submissions from members until September 1, 2026.

For organisations whose leadership teams need to translate external tax strategy insight into internal organisational alignment, the challenge is often less about knowing what to do and more about how to get executive teams to agree, communicate clearly, and hold each other accountable through a period of change. That is where Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), works with professional services, financial, and corporate leadership teams globally. Many organisations find that international travel is far more affordable than clients expect. Whether virtual or face to face, reach out to jonno@consultclarity.org.

For UK and European tax strategy voices, check out '50 Essential Tax Strategy Thought Leaders in the UK and Europe' at:

https://www.consultclarity.org/post/tax-strategy-thought-leaders-uk-europe

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes someone a tax strategy thought leader in Canada?

A tax thought leader in Canada combines technical expertise in the Canadian tax system with a genuine commitment to sharing that expertise publicly in a way that improves the quality of decisions others make. The combination of credentials, practitioner or research experience, active public output on LinkedIn or in peer-reviewed or professional publications, and a willingness to engage with the difficult questions in the reform debate distinguishes the voices on this list from the broader community of highly competent but less publicly active practitioners.

Who are the best Canadian tax experts to follow on LinkedIn?

The most consistently active and informative voices on LinkedIn for Canadian tax in 2025 and 2026 include Kim G.C. Moody, Kenneth Keung, Hugh Neilson, Cory Litzenberger, Stefanie Ricchio, Trevor Tombe, Lindsay Tedds, Toby Sanger, Aaron Wudrick, Amanda Doucette, and Pooja Mihailovich. Their posts cover the full range of personal, corporate, estate, and policy tax topics with a level of technical depth and practical relevance that is genuinely useful for practitioners, advisors, and informed general readers.

How has the Canadian tax landscape changed in 2025 and 2026?

Canada has been through one of the most active periods of tax reform in a generation. The Carney government's Budget 2025 advanced legislation across income tax, transfer pricing, clean economy investment tax credits, mandatory disclosure rules, and trust reporting. The capital gains inclusion rate increase was abandoned, the digital services tax was repealed, and SR&ED credits received their most significant expansion in over a decade. New transfer pricing rules incorporating OECD guidelines came into effect for taxation years beginning after November 4, 2025. Several of these changes, including trust reporting and mandatory disclosure, are generating significant compliance demands for advisors and their clients heading into the second half of 2026.

What is the Canadian Tax Foundation and why does it matter?

The Canadian Tax Foundation, founded in 1945 under the joint sponsorship of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Canadian Bar Association, is the pre-eminent tax research and professional development organisation in Canada. With over 13,000 members as of 2025, it provides a forum for lawyers, accountants, academics, and government officials to work together on the betterment of the Canadian tax system. Its annual conference, the Canadian Tax Journal, and its conference proceedings are among the most important sources of ongoing analysis of Canadian tax law and policy.

Final Thoughts

The 44 thought leaders in this directory do not agree on much. Jack Mintz and Brigitte Alepin approach tax reform from very different starting points. Kim G.C. Moody and Toby Sanger would not write the same op-ed. That disagreement is not a weakness of the list. It is a feature. The Canadian tax system is genuinely contested terrain, and the best analysis of where it should go comes from following all sides of that contest, not just the ones whose conclusions you prefer in advance.

What these 44 voices share is that they have made their thinking available. They have written, spoken, published, and posted. They have put their analysis where others can test it. That willingness to work in public, to accept accountability for one's conclusions, is what distinguishes a thought leader from a practitioner who is merely excellent. Canada's tax system is complex, consequential, and changing rapidly. Following the people on this list is one of the best investments of attention available to anyone who needs to navigate it.

Engage Jonno White to facilitate your next executive offsite, leadership workshop, or Working Genius session. Jonno works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected. To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Sources

Canadian Tax Facts 2026, Global Law Experts. Tax Foundation International Tax Competitiveness Index 2025. C.D. Howe Institute: "Simple on Paper, Complex in Practice: The Limits of Automatic Tax Filing," April 2026 (Alexandre Laurin). C.D. Howe Institute: "'Big Bang' Tax Reform: Unleashing Growth in the Canadian Economy," March 2026 (Jack Mintz, Alexandre Laurin, Nicholas Dahir). International Tax Review: "Canada in the midst of an exceptionally active period of tax reform," May 2026.

Next Read

For the global view of tax strategy thought leadership, the companion post '50 Essential Global Thought Leaders on Tax Strategy' covers the practitioners, academics, and advocates shaping the conversation across all jurisdictions. Keep reading:

https://www.consultclarity.org/post/global-thought-leaders-tax-strategy