A full two years after it took aim at hundreds of Royal Bank clients exposed in the Panama Papers leak, the Canada Revenue Agency has decided just five cases require an audit.
That's because CRA says most of the offshore accounts it unearthed ended up belonging to foreigners
The revenue agency went to court in the wake of the Panama Papers in 2016 to compel RBC to hand over decades' worth of records on clients with offshore companies. The CRA's court filings at the time said it was prompted by revelations which found RBC and its affiliates had set up or handled at least 429 offshore entities for clients since 1977 through a shady Panamanian law firm.
A year later, the tax agency quietly went back to Federal Court to get a second order from a judge forcing Royal Bank to hand over yet more client records stemming from the Panama Papers. (The country's largest bank did not oppose either court order, and the CRA has never alleged it did anything wrong.)
The tax agency confirmed this week that it has finished analyzing all the data.
Instead, a significant number of foreigners might be in for a surprise from their own domestic tax authorities. One official said the CRA has provided details on dozens of those non-Canadian taxpayers who had offshore holdings at RBC to their home countries.
