Damn. I knew this was a huge problem in Europe, but I didn’t know this happened in Canada too.
Here’s the Wikipedia article on this type of fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_trader_fraud
This is the best summary I could come up with:
An investigation by The Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada’s Enquête into carousel schemes in Canada has revealed international networks of sophisticated criminals claiming hundreds of millions of dollars from Canadian government coffers while facing few to no consequences.
They provide a rare glimpse into the operations of Canada’s tax authority, and include auditor memos detailing phone calls and interviews with Iris and its accountants at Deloitte.
According to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, carousel fraud is “the most profitable crime in the EU,” costing around 50 billion euros annually in tax losses to member states.
Those payments formed the basis for tens of millions of dollars worth of additional tax refund claims the company has made to the CRA, which have so far been denied.
Federal Court records show that Deloitte went on to drop Iris as a client in January 2020, saying the firm would “discontinue its professional relationship with the company effective immediately,” attributing the change to an “internal risk assessment.”
Internal auditors’ notes from the Iris court file, though, provide details about why the agency believed that “a sham designed to deceive [the CRA] into paying out GST/HST refunds” had taken place.
The original article contains 2,002 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 91%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I sure wish I was the Sham Wow guy now
