Canadians take aim at Barbados tax shelter

(Barbados Nation) Barbados’ international business sector is once again under attack.

This time, the critics are from one of its favourite source markets – Canada.

The voices calling for a crackdown on international jurisdictions, like Barbados, where Canadian millionaires are said to be sheltering money from tax authorities at home, include opposition parliamentarians, tax specialists and economists.

They contend that the vast compilation of assets in Barbados is in the offshore financial sector, rather than in manufacturing facilities, real estate and other business opportunities.

Toby Sanger, a senior economist with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, charged that Canada’s banks were shuffling large amounts of investment cash into Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other countries in order to avoid paying taxes at home.

A similar complaint came from the opposition in both the House of Commons and the Senate in Ottawa, home of Canada’s federal parliament.