Thursday, April 9, 2009

My tax dollars at works Part 3

This time it isn't the politicians, nor is it the police... not even close. This time it's the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency), Canada's tax collection agency, that misused my tax dollars. The people we entrust to audit the country's citizens and its corporations, the people that we charge with finding people trying to rob the tax-payers and defraud our government of money destined to social service and the running of this very country.

2 arrests were made yesterday in Revenue Canada's Montreal office, for allegedly falsifying tax documents to help a Montreal construction magnate funnel 1.7 million dollars into two inactive companies. The money seemed to be destined for Switzerland and the Bahamas. Two other CRA employees were suspended today in conjunction with the internal investigation that followed the arrests.

As stated in the Globe and Mail: "construction magnate Tony Accurso “funnelled close to $4.5-million” to Mr. Bruno's numbered company, 3703436 Canada Inc., and another firm co-owned by Mr. Bruno, Entretien Torrelli Inc." ... "The two companies have no commercial activities, are inactive" ... "The resulting tax savings are shared by the scheme's participants to use as payoffs or for personal gain."

This isn't the first time Mr Accurso's name is linked to politician or alleged wrong-doings. Montreal councilor Frank Zampino had been on trips to the Caribbean with him prior to Zampino awarding his company a lucrative city contract.

The level of corruption in our institutions is staggering. We currently have a public hearing into alleged money taken by a former Prime-Minister from a shady businessman, we've had the sponsorship scandal and now we have the tax authorities committing tax fraud.

I am thoroughly disappointed and hope that the media stays on top of this one. An internal probe into wrong-doing by the very organization where said wrong-doing originated from just isn't enough for me. It's high time that my tax dollars did more for me than employ corrupt employees and give them a fat pension fund.

Muchacho Enfermo

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2 comments:

machinepolitick said...

I agree! Hopefully it will catch on and become all the rage. We could use a little house cleaning here in the US as well.
It's an unfortunate consequence of the human condition that people in power tend to abuse that power. No matter who's in charge, these things end up happening.
Do you guys have term limits for your politicians? We could use some of those down here as well.

Muchacho Enfermo said...

We do not have term limits for our politicians. Elected members of parliament must be elected and can sit for up to a four year term, however they can be re-elected forever and ever. Which I'm not entirely against in most cases, in other cases I think four days would be too many. lol

I'm just really glad I turned down that job offer from CRA a few years back and decided to work in the private sector.