The Canada Revenue Agency has uncovered millions of dollars worth of missing taxes by doing a simple credit check that the banks have been using for years.
The project found almost $3 million of GST revenue that had been collected from customers by new businesses but was never handed over to Ottawa, or was fraudulently refunded to them.
The money turned up after 439 firms were targeted by running their tax-registration information through a commercial credit-screening service from Equifax Canada Ltd.
Banks and other financial institutions have for years vetted potential customers applying for mortgages, loans and credit cards through commercial credit-checking services.
But the Canada Revenue Agency had not been doing so with companies newly registering as collectors of GST/HST taxes - some of which simply kept the money.
The agency's pilot project was launched in 2010, as part of a wider effort to flush out some of the estimated $35 billion that remains untaxed in the underground economy.
