Plugging Tax Loopholes

[southerncomfort]

Well, looks like Jim F. is going to plug some more tax loopholes. Wonder how the Libertoids will defend offshore havens for tax cheats?

OTTAWA - The federal government, having just shut down one costly tax-avoidance scheme with income trusts, has another in its sights -- offshore tax havens.

"There's some significant tax avoidance there," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said yesterday, after telling the Commons finance committee the government was reviewing the use of offshore tax havens to avoid paying tax.

Using offshore tax havens to avoid paying tax is not illegal but is costly to the government, he said.

Last year, Statistics Canada revealed Canadian direct investment in offshore financial centres, including "tax havens," had soared eightfold since 1990 to $88-billion in 2003.

"Canadian enterprises invested substantial and growing amounts in countries known as 'Offshore Financial Centres', many of them in the Caribbean," it said. "These centres include countries that are often referred to as 'tax havens', as well as those which have important financial sectors, such as Switzerland, but also Ireland," it said.

The largest increases went into Barbados, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas and Ireland, the five countries being among the 11 nations with the most Canadian assets.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser has charged that multinational companies operating in Canada have avoided "hundreds of millions" of dollars in taxes over the past decade through the use of tax havens.

Mr. Flaherty later introduced a motion in the Commons to amend the Income Tax Act to prevent "non-resident trusts and foreign investment entities" from using offshore tax havens to avoid tax.

"The motion will amend existing income tax rules to help ensure that income earned by Canadians through foreign jurisdictions, including tax havens, is subject to tax as if it had been earned in Canada," he said in introducing the motion.

http://paulmartintime.ca/mediacoverage/000139.html

PM's company got outrageous, obscene tax breaks

[geoffrey]

Making more, more complex, rules is a way to increase avoidance/evasion, not prevent it. A simple tax is the least avoided one.

[jbg]

Well, looks like Jim F. is going to plug some more tax loopholes. Wonder how the Libertoids will defend offshore havens for tax cheats?

The pretzel (in which Liberals will twist themselves), in addition to "beer and popcorn" will be the symbol of Election 2007.

[Topaz]

Someone told me that the Minister of Finance was a multi-millionaire, I don't know if that's true or not but if it is, were is he parking his money and keeping it safe from taxes?? Would a minister of finance hurt himself with his tax laws??

[jbg]

Someone told me that the Minister of Finance was a multi-millionaire, I don't know if that's true or not but if it is, were is he parking his money and keeping it safe from taxes?? Would a minister of finance hurt himself with his tax laws??

If he's using his knowledge of the "tricks" to help the "beer and popcorn" crowd, more power to him.

[Mimas]

Someone told me that the Minister of Finance was a multi-millionaire, I don't know if that's true or not but if it is, were is he parking his money and keeping it safe from taxes?? Would a minister of finance hurt himself with his tax laws??

Nope, he wouldn't. Which tells me that he hasn't parked his money in offshore trusts. But Paul Martin used these loopholes for years. Oops, I meant to say that the those running his multi-million dollar operation, whom he was not allowed to talk to, used those loopholes. He just refused to close them despite the fact that the Auditor General put them in her reports every year and told him to close them.