Pay Attention Shopify Merchants (Canada, France and Australia)

[azgold]

Just giving all of our members who are Shopify merchants a heads-up. The tax agencies in Canada, France and Australia have been trying to legally obtain your data, including your banking information for at least a year, apparently.

Despite a UPR being a legal tool the CRA can use as long as its request meets certain criteria and is approved by a judge, Shopify’s COO last year accused the agency of trying to obtain information via a “backchannel” at the time and vowed to fight the “outrageous” requests.

So far, Shopify has not complied but the litigation is still ongoing.

The CRA (Canada Revenue Agency, Canadian tax authority) says it doesn't believe Shopify.

Court filings show tax agency wants Shopify to surrender customers' bank details, sales data​

The goal of the tax agencies is (of course) to try and grab accounts of anyone who has not paid their proper amount of taxes and collect monies owing. I don't know about the other countries but here, the CRA has been going after people with a vengeance. But mostly lower incomes, I've heard, not sure how valid that is.

I do wonder if other countries will follow suit if it ends up that Shopify is compelled by law to hand over the information.

Anyway, just posting it for anyone who doesn't know. So best to make sure your taxes are paid, the revenooers are comin'.

 

[azgold]

Article link fixed - sorry about that.

 

[T J Tutor]

The tax collectors are always trying to go where they are not welcome. They always seem to not ask permission and just make demands whether they have a right or not.

 

[azgold]

They always seem to not ask permission and just make demands whether they have a right or not.

Do they ever! These days they find it perfectly acceptable to beg for forgiveness (only if caught) rather than ask for permission.

 

[Graybeard]

Render onto Caesar ....