SENT: Nov 12, 2017
Dear Fifth Estate,
RE: your request for questions about the Paradise Papers, to be answered on this week’s show
The Paradise Papers are a continuation of the serious problem of
- wealthy Canadians and
- their accountants, lawyers and investment bankers
who use offshore tax havens to circumvent taxation.
The problem was identified as long ago as 1999, 18 years ago (reference CBC article below). If it’s been going on for 20 years without any progress in stopping it, the means and schemes for tax evasion are sophisticated and well developed by now.
QUESTIONS:
- According to CBC reporting March 8, 2016 (below), KPMG takes 15% of the money that they help clients to divert from the CRA (Tax Man) into offshore tax havens. Why isn’t there a law that makes what KPMG (and others) are doing, illegal?
- What is the status of the court cases against the tax cheats (the offshorers)?
- Does Stephanie Henderson, responsible for the lenience for the wealthy, continue in her role of the CRA’s manager of offshore compliance? (Ref: CBC/Radio-Canada obtained a copy of the confidential nine-page offer, signed on May 1, 2015 by CRA’s manager of offshore compliance, Stephanie Henderson.)
- Is the Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, also in a conflict-of-interest over the Regulation of investment banks, money managers, tax accountants and tax lawyers – – in short, over the Regulation of the banksters? (He is definitely in a conflict-of-interest over the Regulation of pension funds.)
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REFERENCE:
URL http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-revenue-kpmg-secret-amnesty-1.3479594
(INSERT, A back-up copy of the article, without the video, is at 2016-03-08 Canada Revenue offered amnesty to wealthy KPMG clients in offshore tax ‘sham’, CBC.
EXCERPT:
KPMG took cut of taxes dodged
The KPMG scheme, which the accounting firm began marketing to wealthy Canadians as far back as 1999, had clients worth more than $5 million use shell companies set up by the accounting firm in the Isle of Man, famous for its corporate secrecy and very low taxes.
KPMG’s internal memos, now part of the court record, show that the scheme was promoted within the firm to all of its Canadian tax practitioners, and that the accounting firm would collect 15 per cent of the taxes dodged.
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NOTE:
I wrote the CBC to try and find out what happened to the two women whose story was told in the in the 2016 coverage, in the video at the top of the URL, http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-revenue-kpmg-secret-amnesty-1.3479594. Will let you know if anything is learned.
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RELATED – PARADISE PAPERS, PANAMA PAPERS, OFF-SHORE TAX HAVENS
Action item: 2017-11-16 Tax Fairness Canada (offshore tax havens). “Tell your MP amd Finance Minister . . . “
Excellent video: 2016-03-08 Canada Revenue offered amnesty to wealthy KPMG clients in offshore tax ‘sham’, CBC.
Links to more: 2016-04-04 The Panama Papers: world reacts to huge offshore tax files leak, The Guardian.