Stockgroup Information Systems Inc. said today it will protect the anonymity of contributors to its online bulletin board while the RCMP investigate a possible leak of the federal goverment’s announcemnt of income trust policy.

In a release, Stockgroup said it has yet to be contacted by the RCMP.

The company noted that two postings on its StockHouse.ca BullBoards appeared on Nov. 23, 2005 saying that Finance Minister Ralph Goodale would “soon announce a reduction on dividend taxation to ‘even the playing field’ “ with income trusts.

Those postings appeared before Goodale announced after the close of financial markets that income trusts would remain free of corporate tax and that taxes on corporate dividends would be cut.

“Protecting the interests of the StockHouse BullBoards community is vitally important to our company. Both professional traders and non-professional investors frequent our BullBoards to candidly share their insights and opinions. They expect privacy and anonymity. Stockgroup will not release the identities of the persons that posted the BullBoards messages,” stated Bruce Nunn, the company’s vice-president of marketing.

Stockgroup describes the StockHouse.ca portal as Canada’s largest online community of active investors.