Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a)(i), the Canada Revenue Agency, CRA, launched the offshore tax informant program, OTIP, on January 15, 2014. As of January 31, 2015, the OTIP had received 1,712 calls, 478 of them from potential informants.
With regard to (a)(ii), as of January 31, 2015, the OTIP had received 189 written submissions. Of these, 113 cases are being reviewed by the OTIP to determine program eligibility. There have been 76 cases that do not qualify under the OTIP. Those cases have been closed and where appropriate, referred to other areas within the CRA for possible compliance action.
With regard to (a)(iii), once the OTIP receives a submission, it is evaluated on its merits as to whether it warrants issuing a contract for the potential reward. It may take several years from the date of entering into a contract with the CRA until the additional federal tax is assessed, the taxpayer’s appeal rights have expired and the amount owing is collected. If the CRA assesses and collects more than $100,000 in additional federal tax, the reward will be between 5% and 15% of the federal tax collected, not including interest or penalties. The OTIP is currently engaged in the contracting phase with several informants. No rewards have been paid out to date.
With regard to (a)(iv), the CRA will report to Canadians on results of the OTIP, including the amounts recovered and paid out to informants, through the CRA’s annual report to Parliament, provided that this information does not have the potential to reveal the identity of confidential informants or disclose taxpayer information.
With regard to (b), the OTIP reviews the information provided by informants about potential international tax non-compliance for eligibility purposes. Only after a file is referred will a CRA compliance action potentially confirm whether a taxpayer has been non-compliant and, if so, the dollar amounts involved. The OTIP takes protecting taxpayer and informant information seriously. Given that the program is still in its early stages, disclosing operational information such as the number of compliance actions that may be under way could jeopardize the identity of an informant or compromise the CRA’s compliance actions.
With regard to (c), please see responses provided in (a)(iv) and (b).