The CRA personnel dealing with voluntary disclosures (VDs) were quite busy in fiscal 2015. Michael Friedman and Andrew Stirling, “Voluntary Disclosures Continue To Increase” Canadian Tax Highlights 24:3 (March 2016) discusses some key points found in the CRA’s report to Parliament from January 2016. According to the authors, the report states that
- More than $1.3 billion of unreported income was voluntarily disclosed under the VDP, a 65% increase over the previous year.
- Of the unreported income disclosed under the VDP, $780 million was attributable to offshore holdings, a 157% increase over the previous year.
- Under the VDP, 19,134 voluntary disclosures were made, a 21% increase over the previous year.
The CRA also noted that the offshore tax informant program generated 1,920 contacts from potential informants.
Finally, effective January 1, 2015, certain financial intermediaries were required to provide identification information for cross-border fund transfers in excess of $10,000. The CRA apparently received about three million notifications pursuant to this requirement in the first quarter of 2015.
