Canada is lax on offshore accounts

The Canadian government loses billions of dollars each year in tax revenues when wealthy residents put their money in secret offshore bank accounts. Yet the problem barely registers on the political agenda. In the United States, which estimates it loses at least $100-billion in tax revenue each year this way, a major effort is under way to crack down on offshore accounts and the people who run them.

The problem is one of straight dollars and simple fairness. At the best of times, a gap of billions is unhelpful; and these aren't the best of times. And most taxpayers may grumble but they pay their taxes, and expect everyone else to do the same.

The political heat in the U.S. has already generated dividends, so to speak. When a U.S. subcommittee held public hearings last summer designed to bring the secret world of offshore banking into the light, a spokesman for Swiss banking giant UBS announced it had done wrong and would no longer provide offshore banking services to U.S. residents. The subcommittee's venerable chairman, Senator Carl Levin, nearly fell off his chair.