Canada part of Copenhagen climate deal December 20, 2009
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrives at a wrap-up press conference at the end of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen on Friday. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other world leaders ? including those from the U.S., China, India, Brazil and South Africa ? are leaving Copenhagen with a compromise climate deal and a vow to work out the details.
The agreement offers money to developing nations to help them fight global warming provided they agree to open their books to international scrutiny.
Harper called it a “comprehensive and realistic” agreement, while U.S. President Barack Obama hailed it as a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough.”
However, the agreement is not binding and does not set new greenhouse-gas reduction targets. Instead, countries are to set their own emission-reduction commitments, which would not be legally binding.
U.S. President Barack Obama makes a statement at the climate change conference on Friday. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)
Those commitments will be the subject of further negotiation, with the aim of a final deal at next year’s summit in Mexico. It’s a compromise following 12 days of divisive talks that saw hopes dwindle as the summit’s close drew near.
Talks in the Danish capital have been marked by rifts between rich countries and developing nations, and between the world’s two biggest polluters ? the U.S. and China.
Obama met privately with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao twice on Friday morning and afternoon to try to come up with an accord, amid deep divisions between rich and poor nations. Neither leader has publicly offered any new commitments to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming as they addressed the conference.
Obama said earlier Friday that world leaders’ ability to take action on the issue “hangs in the balance.”
“I believe we can act boldly and decisively in the face of a common threat,” Obama told the conference earlier Friday. “That’s why I come here today not to talk, but to act.”
Obama called for transparency in determining if countries are meeting their commitment, a remark squarely aimed at China, which is reluctant to allow international scrutiny of its carbon emissions.
A deal without the sharing of information would be a “hollow victory,” Obama said.
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Copenhagen ? Is a deal possible?
The U.S. president also displayed some impatience with the pace of negotiations.
“No country will get everything that it wants,” he said.
Other political leaders gathered in Copenhagen have been expressing doubt about the conference.
“A deal is still possible, but as of this morning, I think we have a climate change summit in crisis,” said Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Program, adding that what the conference needs now is some “inspiring leadership.”
Abandoning hopes of reaching a comprehensive deal, a group of about 25 countries sought their own agreement on a two-page political statement setting out critical elements, key among them the mobilization of $30 billion US in the next three years to help poor countries cope with climate change.
As negotiations evolved, several new drafts of the document, titled the Copenhagen Accord, emerged, each time with key clauses updated and modified. Later drafts said rich countries should cut their greenhouse emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050.
Obama arrived in Copenhagen early Friday, and held an unscheduled meeting with almost 20 world leaders, including the heads of Britain, France, China, Russia, Brazil and a dozen other countries. Harper later met with Obama as the U.S. leader had lunch with about a dozen leaders.
Following that meeting, French President Nicholas Sarkozy accused China of slowing the negotiations. Sarkozy said China is still not agreeing to allow international monitoring.
While Western leaders have pointed at China, some critics have accused the United States of coming into the negotiations too late, with no new proposals.
Jiabao said developed countries must bear their share of responsibility.
“In addressing climate change, it is inadmissible to turn a blind eye to historical responsibilities, per capita emissions, and different levels of development, [which] would undermine the efforts of developing countries to get rid of poverty and backwardness,” he said.
Economic rift
Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, said earlier that talks went well Thursday night, and that compromise and consensus were starting to emerge.
However, the rift between rich and poor nations appears to be as wide as ever. A draft agreement from the U.S., Britain and other countries circulated overnight, but was rejected.
Some negotiators from developing countries have called the situation disappointing and confusing.
Harper arrived on Thursday and participated in Friday’s sessions. In a brief statement on Thursday, Environment Minister Jim Prentice repeated the government’s position that it wants what he calls a “fair deal” for all parties.
With files from The Associated Press (more…)
Canada Revenue probe focuses on some RBC DS clients December 15, 2009
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Canada Revenue Agency alleges investment advisers at a branch of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. helped clients set up offshore accounts that their clients used to evade taxes, a CBC News/Globe and Mail investigation has learned.
Two CRA affidavits say RBC Dominion Securities investment advisers in Victoria assisted in setting up 16 offshore entities with LGT Group in Liechtenstein. While that is not a crime, 13 Canadians who held these offshore entities have all either made voluntary disclosures admitting to evading taxes or are being audited by the CRA for tax evasion.
The three remaining entities were either established but never used or are anonymous entities; no establisher or beneficiaries have yet been identified in connection with the entities.
The CRA is now investigating whether more Canadians are doing the same thing through RBC Dominion Securities advisers across the country.
Canada Revenue has requested from RBC Dominion Securities “a detailed list of all retail accounts held or that have been held with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (RBC DS), that were created for account holders of Liechtenstein, or having mailing addresses in Liechtenstein, at any time during the years 1999 to 2008.”
According to the CRA, Colin Ross, a former investment adviser at the brokerage’s Victoria branch, was connected to 15 of the entities. The CRA said he “assisted” in setting up the foundations in Liechtenstein, which is known for its banking secrecy laws. All of those foundations, in turn, opened up accounts in Switzerland with RBC Dominion Securities, the investment dealer arm of Royal Bank of Canada.
The CRA’s investigation, launched last year, found that the foundations were used by taxpayers to “masquerade as non-residents.” The agency says the taxpayers were “hiding their investments and other income” and “evading their obligation to pay Canadian tax.”
Ross’s lawyer told CBC News that Ross, who has since retired, only did what his clients directed. But Andre Rachert, a lawyer who represents many of those clients, said they followed Ross’s advice.
“To a person, they were advised the way the investments were structured,” Rachert said. “They wouldn’t have to pay taxes in Canada and that RBC [Dominion Securities] or their specific adviser said, ‘This is fine and you can set this up and you won’t have to pay taxes in Canada.’”
RBC’s response
RBC Dominion Securities issued a written statement that said:
“As a firm, we have never encouraged Canadians ? not 25 years ago and not today ? to set up entities in Liechtenstein, and we have never instructed our investment advisers to recommend that practice.
“We comply with all CRA requirements. This means that we provide all our clients with the forms they need to meet their personal tax obligations, and also file reports with CRA that form the basis for reviews such as this.
“It’s legal to invest outside of Canada, but it is illegal not to report the income to CRA. And every Canadian client is responsible for reporting their income and capital gains to CRA based on the forms we provide.”
Court documents filed by the CRA point to two other RBC Dominion employees the agency believes directed clients to Liechtenstein.
Kevin Lockwood, an adviser with RBC Dominion Securities and currently a vice-president at the brokerage’s Victoria branch, is named as having assisted one man in setting up a foundation. That man made a voluntary disclosure to the CRA in 1998 and brought his money back to Canada from offshore.
A third RBC Dominion Securities employee is not named in the documents. The revenue agency is pursuing that person’s identity.
The CRA affidavits also recount how Ross travelled with a client to Liechtenstein, a tiny principality between Switzerland and Austria, allegedly telling him that the “CRA would not know this income existed because the investment activity was conducted in a tax haven.”
Client says offshore account was glamorous
One of the clients, Howard McDiarmid, a former member of the B.C. legislature, has admitted hiding $1.3 million in “retirement money.” He made a voluntary disclosure and, according to an affidavit, knew that what he was doing was wrong.
But others didn’t make disclosures, including one Victoria woman who told investigators she felt having an offshore account was glamorous, according to an affidavit.
The court documents name several B.C. and Alberta residents, including Ross’s brother and nephew.
Contact us
If you have more information on this story, or other investigative tips to pass on, please email investigations@cbc.ca
The investigation arose after the agency learned of 106 Canadians connected to the Liechtenstein tax evasion scandal, in which a former employee of the principality’s LGT Group stole four disks of confidential client information and then sold them to German tax authorities for $7 million.
The German authorities shared that information with Canada, resulting in the revenue agency’s investigation of the 106 Canadians. That investigation has been named Project Jade.
Minister of National Revenue Jean-Pierre Blackburn told CBC News that the agency has already collected $3 million in back taxes and penalties from 10 Project Jade audits.
He said that 38 audits remain open, and that he expects those audits will bring in another $17 million in income taxes. Canadians still have time to contact tax officials to make voluntary disclosures, he said.
“You still have time to call us and do a voluntary disclosure. If you do before we have your name, no penalties ? only interest and income tax that you have to pay.”
Bank of Canada holds steady on rates December 11, 2009
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The Bank of Canada kept its benchmark lending rate at 0.25 per cent Tuesday, reiterating its conditional commitment to hold rates steady until the middle of 2010.
“While significant fragilities remain, global economic developments have been slightly more positive and the global outlook has improved modestly,” the bank said in announcing the rate decision.
The decision to keep rates low concerns some economists.
“It’s too much of a good thing,” Benjamin Tal, an economist with CIBC World Markets, told Havard Gould of CBC’s The National. “It’s stealing [sales] activity from the future.”
Gould’s report will be broadcast Tuesday evening.
Mortgage rate increases only a matter of time
“We’re seeing 10, 12, 13 per cent increases in real estate value in places,” Tal said. “In the ninth inning of a recession, that’s crazy. Are we creating a bubble? If we continue this way for another 12 months, we will be.”
Tal warned that some consumers face a major shock when their mortgages and other debt payments rise, which he says is only a matter of time.
“Rates will rise, and when they do, they will rise much faster than when they fell,” he said. “The amount could be a two or three percentage point increase.”
Borrowers should ask themselves if they can afford such an increase, Tal said. “If you cannot, buy a smaller house.”
Toronto mortgage broker Marcus Tzaferis would agree.
“To those on a variable rate who aren’t keeping an eye on it, I would say call your bank,” he said. “I think there’s a belief that the worst is behind us, and there’s no way property values can decrease again, but in actual fact we didn’t really see much of a decrease.
‘This is a bubble.’? Marcus Tzaferis, mortgage broker
Tzaferis said conditions now are artificial.
“I believe we have inflated prices. This is a bubble.”
Although recent data on GDP and inflation has diverged somewhat from projections, “the main drivers and the profile of the projected recovery in Canada remain consistent with the bank’s views,” the bank said.
The Canadian economy grew by a tepid 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, Statistics Canada reported earlier this month.
Canada’s central bank expects economic growth to become more solidly entrenched throughout 2010 and inflation to return to the two per cent target in the second half of 2011.
Loonie’s threat downplayed
RBC economist Dawn Desjardins expects the central bank will raise rates by a full percentage point in the latter half of 2010, once it is more confident the recovery is underway.
The central bank softened its view on the impact of the strengthening currency, indicating ?persistent strength in the Canadian dollar ? could act as a significant further drag on growth and put additional downward pressure on inflation,” Desjardins noted in reaction to the decision.
The central bank is set to unveil its next decision on lending rates on Jan. 19, 2010.
Canada gained surprising 79,000 jobs in November December 6, 2009
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Canada added 79,000 jobs last month as the country’s unemployment rate dipped 0.1 percentage points to 8.5 per cent.
A student at checks out a bulletin board with job postings in October. The Canadian economy added 79,000 jobs in November, Statistics Canada said.(Al Behrman/Associated Press)
Statistics Canada said Friday that full-time employment increased by 39,000 in November, the third consecutive monthly increase, while part-time employment grew by 40,000, following two months of declines.
The job growth far surpassed the consensus expectations of economists, who had been projecting the creation of 15,000 jobs, and for the unemployment rate to rise to 8.7 per cent.
Calling the jobs report “stunning,” a TD Economics report took particular note of how broad-based the gains were.
“We can’t help but be encouraged by the fact that all provinces [except Manitoba, and marginally so] were posting employment gains as of November.”
“Unless productivity cratered, the data suggest decent and regionally based gains in real GDP in Q4,” the report said.
In October, the country shed 43,200 jobs as the national unemployment rate came in at 8.6 per cent.
Statistics Canada said almost all the job growth last month was attributable to the service sector, which added 73,000 jobs. Within that sector, roughly 38,000 positions were created in educational services.
Employment in the goods-producing sector showed little change in November.
In the provinces
Ontario added 27,000 jobs in November ? the largest gain in the province since September 2008. The province’s unemployment rate, however, remained unchanged at 9.3 per cent.
In Quebec, employment grew by 21,000 in November, pushing the province’s unemployment rate down 0.4 percentage points to 8.1 per cent.
Employment in Alberta rose by 13,000 last month, the largest monthly increase in the province since October 2008.
The Royal Bank of Canada was cautiously optimistic on the report, but was not prepared to downplay the threat of unemployment moving forward.
“The labour data have been very volatile but, on net, 66,500 jobs were created in the three months to November, which supports our call for more robust growth in the fourth quarter,” RBC economist Dawn Desjardins said.
Canada posts current account trade deficit in Q3 November 28, 2009
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Canada posted a record trade deficit in the third quarter of 2009, according to Statistics Canada figures released Friday.
The national statistical agency said Canada produced a current account deficit of $13.1 billion for the July-to-September period, mainly because the country bought more products from other countries than Canadian companies were able to sell overseas.
“A widening in the goods deficit more than offset a marginal narrowing in the services deficit and smaller investment income shortfall,” said Dawn Desjardins, assistant chief economist for RBC Economics Research.
Canada still sold more widgets to the United States than the country’s businesses and individuals purchased from the world’s biggest economy, Statistics Canada said.
But that surplus shrank as Canada’s import bill rose in the third quarter.
“Geographically, Canada continues to record a surplus on goods trade with the United States; however, this bilateral surplus continued to narrow in the third quarter, as Canadian imports from the United States advanced at a faster pace than Canadian exports to American markets,” Statistics Canada said.
Trade balance
A country’s current account position measures its sales of goods and services to foreigners and money inflows to the domestic economy compared to the same country’s purchases of goods and services from other nations and investment outflows to foreigners.
In the third quarter, Canada sold $90 billion in goods outside the country while purchasing $94 billion in foreign products. That resulted in a deficit in this category of $4 billion.
Canada also posted a $5.6-billion deficit on the service side of the trade ledger in the three-month period.
By contrast, Canada received $8.5 billion in repatriated profits and interest payments on foreign investments in the period versus the $8.1 billion in interest and earnings sent outside of the country.
The country’s deficit trade, which appeared in the third quarter, can act to reduce the value of the Canadian dollar. That is because more Canadians will be switching their dollars for other currencies in order to buy foreign goods and services.
The rise in imports purchases also can slow economic growth, said RCB.
“The rapid rise in imports in the third quarter points to the trade sector acting as a significant drag on the pace of GDP growth. RBC estimates that net exports trimmed 4.2 percentage points from the quarterly economic growth rate,” said Desjardins.
Canada Post struggles to innovate November 22, 2009
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Postal worker Jean-Marc Saucier empties a mailbox in Lachute, Que. Despite the boom in Christmas demand, postal systems worldwide have been hit hard by the recession.(Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)
Christmas is often a busy time for Canada Post, but the season is especially key this year as the company struggles to make up for dwindling demand in the face of a devastating global economic slowdown.
The U.S. Postal Service announced Monday that it lost $3.8 billion US this fiscal year that just ended and is looking at drastic changes to turn its business around.
Canada Post’s situation is not nearly as dire. The company took in $7.7 billion Cdn in revenue in the last fiscal year, an increase of $255 million, or three per cent, from the previous year.
Canada Post actually made $90 million in profit, although this was before the full brunt of the recession was felt. A lot has changed since the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2008.
The agency moved 11.8 billion pieces of mail last year. That’s still a fairly robust figure, but it’s been falling by a few percentage points a year for several years.
Santa Claus, also known as Patrick Farmer, has some mail to read at Santa Claus House in North Pole, Alaska.(Sam Harrel/Associated Press)
The advent of email took a major dent out of the post office’s former raison d’être: first-class mail. First-class mail is anything you put a stamp on and address yourself. Second- and third-class mailings are usually flyers and offers from businesses ? junk mail, as it’s come to be known.
It’s less lucrative, but as letters to grandma and birthday cards are replaced with the quick email, direct advertising is making up more of Canada Post’s revenues. And tough economic times have seen businesses cut back on mailings. Advertising mailings are down 12 per cent so far this year, says Jacques Côté, the Canada Post COO.
If you’ve noticed a lot less credit card offers coming in the mail, it’s because advertising from U.S. banks and financial institutions in particular is down, Côté said.
“We anticipated that we’re going to see some decline, so we had a fairly aggressive cost reduction this year ? and we’re in fact going to be able to report another profit, despite the decline ? in volume for 2009,” Côté said.
Exacerbating the pinch on revenues is that the carrier must deliver to more and more places ? some 200,000 new homes are built every year, and with each comes a new address that needs mail delivery.
“Every day we travel ? the equivalent of going 11 times around the planet,” Côté said.
To boost its bottom line, Canada Post is looking to reinvent itself. It has already experimented getting into banking, as many European mail carriers already do. But the company hasn’t found the right formula to make it work in Canada yet, Côté admits.
“We find it’s a puzzling market opportunity,” he said. “A lot of posts are running it successfully, but we have not yet found the magic silver bullet to make money at it.”
The union representing postal workers also sees the writing on the wall. Denis Lemelin, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, agrees Canada Post needs to diversify ? and not just into financial services. He suggests offering hunting licences and passport processing, especially in remote and rural areas.
“It’s a brand, Canada Post is a brand, so with that it’s possible to be the most important corporation to deliver postal service and all other services linked with that,” Lemelin said.
Kindle comes to Canada without browser November 17, 2009
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The Kindle with its high-resolution 15-cm screen, is now available to Canadians. (Ben Margot/Canadian Press)
The Kindle e-book reader is now available to Canadians, Amazon.com announced Tuesday, but without some key features.
The e-reader sells on Amazon.com for $259 US, plus import fees, which the website says will be about $31 per Kindle.
The e-reader will be able to wirelessly download books, magazines and newspapers over a 3G cellular network called Whispernet on AT&T’s global network, Kinley Campbell of Amazon.com said.
Rogers and Telus wouldn’t confirm whether they were supplying the device’s cellular connectivity in Canada.
“We don’t talk about potential products or services before they are officially announced,” Rogers spokesperson Odette Coleman said. “Rogers has not made any announcements regarding Kindle.”
“For competitive reasons, we can’t talk about specific network interconnection agreements with other carriers or specialty service providers such as Amazon,” Telus spokesperson A.J. Gratton said.
Bell did not return a request for comment.
The e-reader’s web browser and blog subscription service will not work in Canada, according to the description on Amazon.com, but customers will have free access to Wikipedia.
The Kindle can store about 1,500 books in its two gigabytes of memory.
“We know that Canadians are passionate about books and reading, and we’re excited to make Kindle available to our customers there,” said Ian Freed, vice-president of Kindle, in a statement. “Kindle enables customers around the world including Canada to think of a book and start reading it in under 60 seconds.”
The Kindle Store has 300,000 book titles, which Amazon says typically cost $12 or less.
As well, the Globe and Mail and the National Post have joined the list of newspapers and magazines available for purchase through the Kindle Store, with Canwest’s major daily newspapers coming later. Users can buy a single copy or a subscription.
Last month, Amazon rolled out the international version of the Kindle to 100 countries, but Canada wasn’t included. The device debuted in 2007 in the U.S.
Amazon is trying to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded e-reader market. The Kindle currently has 60 per cent of the U.S. market, according to a Forrester Research report, and Sony has 35 per cent.
Sony’s Reader is available in Canada, as is its smaller Reader Pocket Edition and its larger touch-screen version. None of them can connect wirelessly, although Sony announced that it would begin selling the Reader Daily Edition in the U.S. in December.
The Daily Edition will connect to the AT&T network. No Canadian launch date has been announced.
In Canada, Indigo Book & Music has launched an e-book service called Shortcovers that can download books to iPods and smartphones, rather than to a dedicated e-reader.
Rising exports narrow Canada’s trade deficit November 14, 2009
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Higher exports to the EU helped narrow Canada’s trade deficit to $927 million in September, Statistics Canada said Friday.(Jason R Zalasky/Associated Press)
Canada’s exports were 3.5 per cent higher in September, narrowing the trade deficit to $927 million from $2 billion.
Statistics Canada says exports rose by $1 billion to $30.3 billion in September, as volumes increased 4.5 per cent. Imports were largely unchanged, edging down 0.1 per cent to $31.2 billion.
Exports have been on a downward trend since July 2008 and reached a low point in May 2009 before increasing in three of the past four months.
Automotive products, industrial goods and materials, and machinery and equipment were the main sources of growth for exports. Energy products mitigated the gains.
Higher exports to the European Union were largely responsible for the overall increase in exports.
“The big story in this report was Canada?s diversification away from the United States,” BMO economist Benjamin Reitzes said.
Exports to the EU and other OECD countries jumped 34 per cent and 15 per cent respectively, he noted. “As U.S. consumption is likely to lag the global recovery, a shift towards other markets will be a key to Canadian exporters? success,” he said.
Exports to the United States increased 0.5 per cent while imports grew 1.7 per cent. As a result, Canada’s trade surplus with its largest trading partner shrank to $2.1 billion in September from $2.3 billion in August.
“With the U.S. still Canada?s largest customer, trade deficits are likely to persist,” Reitzes said.
Canada sheds 43,200 jobs in October November 6, 2009
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Canada’s unemployment rate rose slightly in October, with the economy shedding 43,200 jobs in the month.
The rate was up two-10ths of a percentage point to 8.6 per cent in October from 8.4 per cent the previous month, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The jobs lost were all part-time. That means employment is now down a total of 400,000 jobs, or 2.3 per cent, since a year ago.
Province October unemployment rate September unemployment rate
N.L. 17 15.3
P.E.I. 12 11.8
N.S. 9.3 9.5
N.B. 8.5 8.1
Que. 8.5 8.8
Ont. 9.3 9.2
Man. 5.8 5.3
Sask. 5.3 4.6
Alta. 7.5 7.1
B.C. 8.3 7.4
The latest job loss figures were a surprise to economists, who had been expecting a 10,000-job gain in October after Canada’s economy added positions in August and September.
“While this is only the first indicator for Q4, it introduces some downside risk to the Bank of Canada’s call for 3.3 per cent annualized real GDP growth in the quarter,” BMO analyst Benjamin Reitzes said in a note.
“While employment is still higher over the past three months, the big decline in October highlights the sluggish nature of the recovery.”
October’s weak result would have been worse without the self-employed, the ranks of which swelled by 28,000 during the month. A surge in self-employment is often an indication of lower-paying work, CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld said.
“The earlier run-up may have, in part, been statistical noise, ” he said.
Considering the spike in self-employment, the number of employees with jobs in October fell a massive 70,700.
Regional differences
The largest job losses came in Alberta and B.C., with losses of 15,000 and 13,000, respectively. Employment fell by 4,000 full-time jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador during the month.
An employment counsellor advises job seekers in Grande Prairie, Alta., in March. Canada’s unemployment rate hit 8.6 per cent in October, Statistics Canada said.(CBC)
There were 3,400 fewer jobs in Manitoba during the month, and employment was essentially flat in Ontario and Quebec. But since the downturn began in October 2008, Ontario has shed 206,000 jobs, more than half of which have come in the manufacturing sector. Quebec has lost 62,000 in that time.
If there was good news, it was a marginal increase in full-time employment.
And average hourly wages were up 3.3 per cent in October compared with the same month in 2008.
Construction jobs also edged up, as did transportation and warehousing, while the weak manufacturing sector was mostly unchanged.
Revenue Canada steps up hunt for eBay tax dodgers October 22, 2009
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The Canada Revenue Agency is stepping up its efforts to track down eBay merchants who haven’t paid taxes on profits made from selling goods on the popular auction website.
To date, only 50 Canadian eBay merchants have come forward to pay their back taxes since July, when Revenue Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn gave high-volume eBay sellers one last chance to pay their taxes without penalty.
Under Canadian tax law, profits on goods someone sells are considered income, no matter what the venue. A recent court decision forces eBay to hand over the names, addresses and sales records of its high-volume merchants to tax officials.
Citing privacy concerns, eBay wouldn’t reveal the number of merchant records it has sent to the Canada Revenue Agency but did confirm it’s in the thousands. The company says it informed its users ahead of time that their records were being passed on to tax authorities.
The federal agency told CBC News it has processed only nine of the proactive voluntary disclosures and that those nine represent about $275,000 in previously undeclared income.
The agency also says it has begun launching audits of merchants whose names were released by eBay but have not come forward.
High-volume sellers, according to the court order, are those who made at least $20,000 and had 24 sales in one year or who made more than $100,000 in a year, regardless of the number of transactions.
EBay Canada began providing the revenue agency with information and sales records last November.
The move followed a Court of Appeal decision in April 2008 that upheld a Federal Court judgment requiring eBay Canada to provide tax officials with full account information on sellers.
If an individual or business does not comply with Canadian tax laws, they may be forced to pay any outstanding taxes, plus interest, and could face fines and other sanctions.
Taxpayers who came forward under the voluntary disclosures program will not be penalized or prosecuted if they make a full disclosure before the revenue agency starts any audit or compliance action.
