EDMONTON - The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has issued a new report on the price we pay for fuel. As part of the 15th annual Gas Tax Honesty Day, the federation encourages citizens to lobby against charging tax-on-tax for gasoline and diesel. Alberta director Derek Fildebrandt says even without a provincial sales tax, residents of the province pay roughly $80 million a year or $15 per fill-up.

OTTAWA - As an international investigation of tax evaders broadens to include Canadian authorities, the federal government says it has convicted just 44 individuals of offshore tax cheating since 2006. And the total amount of fines levied — $6.8 million — is less than the $7.7 million in taxes that were evaded. Between April 2006 and March 2012, a total of 44 convicted tax evaders were collectively sentenced to 337 months in jail, an average of about seven months each.

By Lawrence Summers (Reuters) - The economics commentariat and no small part of the political debate in recent weeks has been consumed with the controversy surrounding the work of my Harvard colleagues (and friends) Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff (RR). Their work had been widely interpreted as establishing that economic growth was likely to stagnate in a country once its government debt-to-GDP ratio exceeded 90 percent.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - France is likely to be given two more years to reach its budget deficit goals, the EU's top economic official said on Friday, following in Spain's footsteps as the euro zone relaxes its strict austerity policies. "In France, the recovery is now expected to be delayed," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told a news conference. "Considering the economic situation, it may be reasonable to extend the deadline by two years and to correct the excessive deficit at the latest by 2015 in France," he said.