Federal revenue minister Gail Shea is calling on a group that has reportedly investigated offshore tax havens to turn over any information it has uncovered on Canadians who might be hiding assets overseas.
Shea issued a statement Thursday calling on, “The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to hand over this list to allow our government to crack down on tax evaders.”
The group says that its research of offshore records has turned up government officials and their families and associates in a variety of countries, including Canada, that “have embraced the use of covert companies and bank accounts.” It says they use complex offshore structures to assets, gain tax advantages and anonymity, not available to average people; and that many of the world’s top banks have facilitated this activity.
The news comes as the federal government recently made cracking down on offshore tax evasion a central platform of its recent budget, including measures to pay bounties to those who report offshore tax cheats, requiring financial firms to report international electronic funds transfers of $10,000 or more to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), and extending the normal reassessment period, among other things.
Budget 2013: Cracking down on international tax cheats
“Anyone with information on tax cheats has an obligation to bring it forward. The release of this information is good news for the hardworking Canadians who pay their fair share. This is bad news for the tax evaders in this country,” Shea said in a statement.
“Our government has long recognized that international tax evasion is a serious problem. For this reason, CRA officials will review any information they receive and aggressively pursue all suspected cases of tax evasion,” she added, noting that, “Over the last six years, the CRA has conducted approximately 8,000 compliance actions and reassessed in excess of $4.5 billion in federal taxes.”