TORONTO – Ontario’s government spending watchdog warns there is “significant risk” the Liberals will not eliminate a $4.3 billion deficit next year, but Finance Minister Charles Sousa insists the books will be balanced as promised.In his fall economic statement Nov. 14, Sousa announced he would dip into the reserve fund to ensure a balanced budget in 2017-18, in part because of an accounting change in the way pension liabilities are calculated.“We’re balancing next year and we’re balancing the year after that,” Sousa said Monday. “We’re much more aggressive in our assumptions, and while the FAO is estimating that impact (from the accounting change) will be $1.5 billion a year, we said it would be $2.2 billion and $3.7 billion.”
CRA taking far too long to resolve tax objections, auditor general says
OTTAWA—The federal auditor general says Canada’s tax man is costing the government and citizens millions by taking far too long to resolve income tax disputes.Michael Ferguson’s audit says it took months for Canadians to hear from the Canada Revenue Agency after formally objecting to their income tax assessments, and that appeals officers can wait more than a year when they request help from other areas of the agency.
Source: CRA taking far too long to resolve tax objections, auditor general says | Toronto Star
B.C. minister says province will act ‘quickly’ to close tax loopholes on farmland
The B.C. government is pledging to act “quickly” to revise farm tax breaks so they can’t be exploited by investors who buy agricultural land but do little or no farming.
Peter Fassbender, the minister responsible for overseeing property assessments and farm taxation, said Monday the province will now consider making those investors pay significantly higher taxes.
“If there is something people are taking unfair advantage of, then I think we have to take a hard look at that and close those loopholes,” the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development told The Globe and Mail in an interview. “We have proven time and time again, when action is needed we can move very quickly.”
Source: B.C. minister says province will act ‘quickly’ to close tax loopholes on farmland GLOBE AND MAIL
Speculators buying B.C. farmland while exploiting tax breaks
Investors and speculators are taking prime agricultural land out of production – and sometimes erecting palatial mega-mansions on the landscape – as the B.C. government’s outdated tax system allows them to exploit incentives intended only for those who farm. Kathy Tomlinson reports
Source: Speculators buying B.C. farmland while exploiting tax breaks GLOBE AND MAIL
Vancouver recommends 1% tax on empty homes
Vancouver city staff have unveiled a proposal for a one per cent tax on empty homes that would become the first of its kind in Canada, if approved by city council.
The proposal would require all homeowners in the city to self-declare whether a property is their principal residence — meaning the usual place they call home — where they receive mail and file their taxes.
Source: Vancouver recommends 1% tax on empty homes CBC.CA
Fraud is Flourishing: Canada’s Regulatory Patchwork Paves Way for Financial Crimes
Fraud is alive and well in Canada. It is thriving and fraudsters are innovating. This boom in white-collar crime is partly the result of Canada’s lack of a uniform regulatory system and ineffective law enforcement.
On September 22, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Affairs Assets Control (OFAC) designated Vancouver-based company PacNet Group a significant transnational criminal organization. PacNet is an international payments processor and money services business, with a history of money laundering. OFAC issued a press release, stating that PacNet knowingly processes payments on behalf of a wide range of mail fraud schemes that target victims in various countries across the globe, and it is the third-party payment processor of choice for a breadth of mail fraud ploys. These allegations shine lights on how these types of fraudulent activities can flourish under Canada’s current legal landscape.
Canada’s lack of cohesive regulation is particularly problematic surrounding the collection of beneficial ownership information on registered companies.
According to information provided by the British Columbia government, between 2006 and 2015, 304,859 companies were incorporated through BC’s Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizen’s Services. Federal incorporations are also on the rise.
Canada has 2.6 million corporations, with an overwhelming majority being incorporated provincially. The formation of companies is an industry onto itself, with Canada allowing a high degree of anonymity about registrants. A report issued by the Financial Action Task Force warned:
B.C. Patients’ Charter Case Will Spur Overdue Health-Care Reform
Even after the fall of the the Berlin Wall, it was possible to find apologists for communism who would insist that the political system responsible for immeasurable human suffering wasn’t inherently flawed. There was nothing wrong with communism, you see, it was the implementation that had failed. Professor Colleen Flood’s defence of Canada’s creaking state health-care monopoly in the Huffington Post last week has a similar air of unreality.
Written with the sententiousness of a party tract, but none of the revolutionary élan, I don’t expect many readers followed her plodding piece to its perfunctory end. Fortunately, you don’t have to get that far to see the problems with her argument (to use the word loosely): each of the first three sentences contains a factual inaccuracy, and the blog goes downhill from there.
The legal case that has agitated Professor Flood does not “challenge … the publicly funded Canadian health system,” nor does it “allege that medicare violates the Charter.” The plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge is straightforward: if the government does not provide timely medical treatment, then it cannot at the same time legally prohibit patients who are suffering on long wait lists from taking control of their own health care and arranging treatment privately.
Whose Canada Infrastructure Bank?
In mid-April, Bank of Canada (BOC) governor Stephen Poloz surprised many Canadians when he stated that the Federal Finance Minister “is not my boss,” while insisting that the Bank of Canada “is a fully independent policymaker.”
In reporting this, the Financial Post (April 13) also quoted a UK-based economist who said, “Technically, the bank is a Crown corporation and the shares are owned by the Minister of Finance. So as the main shareholder, it could force some decision…But in real life, central banks have fought for their independence, which is widely recognized as sound policy and means that the finance minister does not interfere in the bank’s affairs and allows the bank to be independent.” [1]
But according to members of the Toronto-based Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER), the Bank of Canada Act is clear about just who is Poloz’s “boss.” Article 14:2 of the Bank of Canada Act states that in any difference of opinion between the Governor and the Finance Minister regarding monetary policy, the Minister may “give to the Governor a written directive…and the Bank shall comply with that directive,” which would then have to be published in the Canada Gazette and presented to Parliament.
Source: http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/whose-canada-infrastructure-bank
Morneau confirms Liberals seeking to eliminate more tax credits
Finance Minister Bill Morneau is looking to eliminate more tax credits as he prepares for the 2017 budget, a move that could simplify the tax code while also raising new revenue for a cash-strapped Liberal government.
The Finance Minister made back-to-back parliamentary-committee appearances Wednesday, one day after releasing a fall fiscal update that promised increases to infrastructure spending but also forecasted larger deficits due to slower economic growth.
Tax credits – which are officially called tax expenditures but are often referred to as boutique tax cuts because they can be targeted at specific segments of the population – are worth about $100-billion a year in foregone federal revenue.
The minister appointed a panel in June to review these credits, but he had been largely non-committal as to whether he intended to take further action on this front.
However, when asked directly during an appearance Wednesday before the Senate finance committee, Mr. Morneau confirmed that more changes are coming.
Quebec Liberal Party fundraisers allegedly pocketed huge payouts in government real estate deals
Key fundraisers for the Quebec Liberal Party may have pocketed large sums of money through a series of real estate transactions, allegedly splitting that money with the former head of the provincial Crown corporation charged with managing those buildings, Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquête has learned.
The months-long probe by Enquête presents what a retired anti-corruption investigator believes could be the biggest case of real estate fraud involving government buildings in Quebec, and perhaps even Canadian, history.
“We’re talking about real estate fraud involving government agencies,” said Christian Plourde, a retired investigator with Quebec’s anti-corruption unit, UPAC, who supervised the investigation until last year.
The investigation dates back to 2007, when Swiss police tracked the suspicious movement of money between European banks, alerting investigators in Quebec.
UPAC has carried out a long and complex investigation since 2011.
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/real-estate-quebec-fava-rondeau-fortier-bartlett-1.3833469
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