Money does buy freedom and secrecy, doesn't it?.
Dragan Micanovic was fined $2,000 by the Canada Revenue Agency after a client refused to pay for work, and he fell behind on his taxes. The CRA named Micanovic on its website as a convicted tax cheat, but the agency refuses to name nine people convicted of stashing millions of dollars in offshore tax havens. (MARCO CHOWN OVED / TORONTO STAR) |
The Canada Revenue Agency claims at least nine people have been convicted of offshore tax evasion over the last two years, receiving $4 million in fines and 84 months of jail time, but it is keeping the names of these tax cheats secret.
Yet there are dozens of people — carpenters, hairdressers, farmers, plumbers, foresters, realtors, architects — who are named and shamed on the CRA’s website for not paying small amounts of tax.
This double standard means that small business owners who fall behind on tax payments, or servers who don’t declare their tips, are publicly outed for their relatively paltry offences, while wealthy individuals and businesses caught hiding millions in offshore tax havens are guaranteed anonymity.
Even though criminal convictions for tax evasion should be public information, without the defendants’ names, case numbers or knowledge of which courthouse the convictions were handed down in, it’s impossible to determine the identities of offshore tax cheats.
In the wake of the Panama Papers revelations, Ottawa pledged $444 million over five years to crack down on tax cheats and said it will focus on those who use offshore tax havens. But in several high-profile cases of offshore tax evasion that have emerged over the last year, including one scheme in which KPMG helped wealthy clients hide $130 million in the Isle of Man, the perpetrators remain unnamed.
“Although the CRA can provide aggregate statistics on the convictions with links to money or assets held offshore, we are not able to give the names and case numbers of the people convicted as this may contravene taxpayer confidentiality,” wrote CRA spokesperson David Walters in an email to the Star.
“The details that we are able to include in our conviction news releases is limited to what is presented in the courts and part of the public record. As a result, if the public record does not include information linking the convicted taxpayer to money and assets located offshore, we are not able to report this information,” he wrote.
In April, the federal anti-money-laundering agency, Fintrac, fined a bank $1.1 million for failing to report a suspicious transaction, but refused to name the institution.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/25/cra-has-double-standard-for-tax-cheats.html
Dragan Micanovic was fined $2,000 by the Canada Revenue Agency after a client refused to pay for work, and he fell behind on his taxes. The CRA named Micanovic on its website as a convicted tax cheat, but the agency refuses to name nine people convicted of stashing millions of dollars in offshore tax havens. (MARCO CHOWN OVED / TORONTO STAR) |
The Canada Revenue Agency claims at least nine people have been convicted of offshore tax evasion over the last two years, receiving $4 million in fines and 84 months of jail time, but it is keeping the names of these tax cheats secret.
Yet there are dozens of people — carpenters, hairdressers, farmers, plumbers, foresters, realtors, architects — who are named and shamed on the CRA’s website for not paying small amounts of tax.
This double standard means that small business owners who fall behind on tax payments, or servers who don’t declare their tips, are publicly outed for their relatively paltry offences, while wealthy individuals and businesses caught hiding millions in offshore tax havens are guaranteed anonymity.
Even though criminal convictions for tax evasion should be public information, without the defendants’ names, case numbers or knowledge of which courthouse the convictions were handed down in, it’s impossible to determine the identities of offshore tax cheats.
In the wake of the Panama Papers revelations, Ottawa pledged $444 million over five years to crack down on tax cheats and said it will focus on those who use offshore tax havens. But in several high-profile cases of offshore tax evasion that have emerged over the last year, including one scheme in which KPMG helped wealthy clients hide $130 million in the Isle of Man, the perpetrators remain unnamed.
“Although the CRA can provide aggregate statistics on the convictions with links to money or assets held offshore, we are not able to give the names and case numbers of the people convicted as this may contravene taxpayer confidentiality,” wrote CRA spokesperson David Walters in an email to the Star.
“The details that we are able to include in our conviction news releases is limited to what is presented in the courts and part of the public record. As a result, if the public record does not include information linking the convicted taxpayer to money and assets located offshore, we are not able to report this information,” he wrote.
In April, the federal anti-money-laundering agency, Fintrac, fined a bank $1.1 million for failing to report a suspicious transaction, but refused to name the institution.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/25/cra-has-double-standard-for-tax-cheats.html
