HALIFAX ? Ottawa will use the courts to try and get the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to hand over leaked data naming people who have allegedly used offshore tax havens, National Revenue Minister Gail Shea said Tuesday.
Foreign bank accounts ? they?re not just for the furtive
Banking abroad is as ordinary as a winter home in Florida or a business office in London.
Most of the accounts are for convenience, such as paying utility bills for a condo beneath the palms and getting access to an ATM without paying heavy fees when drawing foreign U.S. currency.
Continue reading.
Shea said she has asked the CBC for the information but it has refused, so now the department will pursue legal means in a bid to get the list.
?We will pursue any legal options that we do have to obtain the list and we are working with the United States and our other international partners to do so,? she said in an interview.
Shea said tax evasion is illegal and the media has an obligation to provide the department with any information about suspected illegal activity, which she said the CBC?s stories suggest is a possibility.
Asked what specific laws apply, Shea said that will be left to the department?s legal experts.
The CBC is the sole Canadian member of the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which has refused to give Ottawa a list that it says includes 450 Canadians.
CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson said the public broadcaster cannot divulge its sources or the data, and it will defend itself in court if necessary.
?Like the other members of the ICIJ, our responsibility is to tell the story,? he said in an interview.
?As a journalistic organization and as a matter of journalistic principle, CBC doesn?t reveal sources nor any related background information.?
Detailed financial information of several thousand individuals from around the world was leaked to consortium, which shared it with other media outlets.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has promised to crack down on tax cheats. His recent budget included a program to stop international tax evasion by offering financial rewards for tips to the Canada Revenue Agency if an investigation bears fruit.
Flaherty said the goal is to bring in hundreds of millions of new tax dollars.
Canadians are already required by law to report any offshore holdings worth more than $100,000 to the Canada Revenue Agency.
The data, contained on a 260 gigabyte hard drive, was obtained by ICIJ, a Washington, D.C. based non-profit group which collaborated with dozens of news organizations including the CBC, The Guardian and the Washington Post to decipher the data files.
The list of account holders reportedly includes more than 130,000 individuals from around the world, including Americans, Germans, Italians as well as people from India, China, Thailand and Indonesia.
So far however, only a small portion of the names have been disclosed, with only one from Canada, class action lawyer Tony Merchant, who reportedly has an account with $1.7-million in the Cook Islands.
The Canadian Press, with files from John Greenwood, Financial Post
fourth of july IFE Fireworks 2012 4th Of July independence day BET Awards 2012 declaration of independence 4th Of July 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.