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Loblaws Inc. is suing the provincial government in court for a fuel and interest tax bill worth $ 2.6 million after the company has voluntarily disclosed the discovery of the property. a fraudulent scheme by a third party at a service station located on Squamish Nation lands in North Vancouver.
On July 4, Loblaws filed an application with the Supreme Court of British Columbia seeking to quash the fuel tax and carbon tax badessments for the period 2005 to 2008 and, failing that, remove accrued interest of more than one million dollars.
According to the petition, the company owns the gas station located at 333 Seymour Boulevard in North Vancouver, which it leases from a company owned by the Squamish Nation. In addition to the Real Canadian Superstore, the gas station is located on a reserve, which, under the Indian Act, allows "Status Indians" to purchase fuel exempted from the Fuel Tax Act. of the Carbon Tax Act.
The gas station was then operated by the Squamish First Nation and "there was no employee of the petitioner directly involved in the daily activities of the gas station," the petition says.
Employees were required to "take various steps to verify the eligibility of Indian clients registered for tax holidays", including recording sales dates, customer names and membership information. a band. In 2013, the company discovered a fraudulent scheme by some employees that fraudulently exaggerated exempt gas sales by inflating volumes in exemption journals or "registering exempt tax-exempt purchases". . The employees would have pocketed some of the money, otherwise it would have gone to the provincial coffers. The remainder was paid to the Squamish Nation as a royalty paid by customers with tax-exempt fuel sales status.
Loblaws stated that it immediately opened an internal investigation and contacted the RCMP to report the fraud, while voluntarily disclosing potential unpaid taxes to the BC Ministry of Finance. However, the Ministry of Finance audit covered the years before the limitation periods and struck the company with a fuel tax bill of $ 1,641,079 with $ 1,030,527 interest and a tax bill. carbon of $ 17,266 and $ 6,683.
The company has unsuccessfully applied for badessments, which were confirmed in March 2019. Despite the limitation period set in the MFTA, the legislation allows the government to badess for years beyond "when there has been violation of MFTA for willful misconduct or fraud. "
The company states that the valuations are "unsupported by the facts and / or by applicable law". The factual basis of the motion was not reviewed by a court and the provincial government failed to respond within the prescribed time.
– Business in Vancouver
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