Canada will seek leaked Panama data to pursue offshore audits

[OTTAWA] The federal government will seek documents from the Panama secrecy leak to help it pursue existing audits of Canadians that may be using offshore accounts to evade taxes, the national revenue ministry said.

Reports published Sunday based on 11.5 million documents from a Panamanian firm, Mossack Fonseca, suggested politicians and business figures had channeled billions through offshore accounts.

The Canadian Revenue Agency said it "continues to pursue" audits of some Canadian clients of the law firm, according to a statement issued Tuesday.

Officials will seek "to obtain the data leaked through the Panama Papers in order to cross-reference this information with the data already obtained through the agency's existing investigation tools," the department said.

Offshore entities, of themselves, are not illegal. But they can be used to launder money or hide assets from tax authorities in other countries.

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For more coverage of the Panama Papers, visit bt.sg/panama_papers