Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse
The federal government has singled out Canadian banks for gaming the tax system to artificially reduce their tax bills.
In the budget released Tuesday, Ottawa announced it will tighten tax rules “meant to prevent a small group of taxpayers, typically Canadian banks and other financial institutions, from gaining a tax advantage.”
The measure was one of a slew of reforms to prevent tax evasion and avoidance that Ottawa estimates will bring in almost $1 billion per year.
Read more at Toronto Star
Some foreign investors, particularly those from China, are taking advantage of Canadian loopholes to become ghost immigrants, according to David Lesperance, a tax and immigration consultant with Lesperance & Associates.
Lesperance cites one recent judge’s decision from a lawsuit in which the judge said Chinese millionaire Guoqing Fu bought multiple multi-million-dollar homes in Canada while claiming just $97 in worldwide income on his taxes. The judge’s 600-page ruling in the case was posted online earlier this month.
Read more at CTV News
OTTAWA — About one-fifth of a group of wealthy Canadians who took part in a federal government survey last year didn’t believe that a proposed advertising campaign about a federal crackdown on tax cheats would do anything to deter people from using overseas tax havens.
There was a similar response from “high net worth” respondents who took part in the survey, conducted last December but released only recently. About one quarter of respondents didn’t believe that the Canada Revenue Agency ads would deter people from taking part in the underground economy.
Read more at CTV News
OTTAWA – The Canada Revenue Agency says it won’t hesitate to investigate new evidence of offshore tax evasion in the wake of a second massive leak of tax haven financial records.
The leak of some 13.4 million records, dubbed the Paradise Papers, lifts another veil on the often murky ways in which the wealthy – including more than 3,000 Canadian individuals and entities – stash their money in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.
Read more at Maclean’s Magazine
The Canadian government is revamping its advance income tax rulings process and restricting access to its voluntary disclosures program to better address tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, the country’s national revenue minister said.
Improvements to the Canada Revenue Agency’s audit process for multinational and large businesses, together with funding commitments of more than C$1 billion ($740 million) to fight tax evasion, are expected to help recover more than C$13 billion in taxes owing in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2017, National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier said June 1.
Read more at bna.com