Further to its quest to find taxpayers with offshore accounts, CRA has filed an application in the Federal Court seeking names of investors to a British Virgin Islands Corporation that was partially purchased by the Bank of Nova Scotia in 2002. The investors in this corporation are suspected to include members of “six prominent Canadian business families”.
Given the current economic state and budget deficit, CRA has ramped up its efforts to track down assets held by Canadian taxpayers in offshore accounts. It seems CRA has chosen is to seek information from the five major banks as part of these efforts. Last December, CRA began investigating the involvement of employees of RBC Dominion Securities in setting up an offshore entity to hold assets.
Given the nature of the information requested, this is a story that will be worth following.