The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: places//canada/kosher-tax-deduction


Archive/File: fascism/canada gm.081194
Last-Modified: 1994/08/14

Toronto Globe and Mail
August 11, 1994, p. A4

Anti-Semitic pamphlet aids tax-deduction ploy
Revenue Canada warns of penalties
by Rudy Platiel
The Globe and Mail

An embarrassed Revenue Canada said yesterday that anyone who
received a charitable income-tax deduction for buying kosher food -
supported only by an anti-Semitic leaflet - had better get back to
the department.

Spokesman Michel Cleroux was reacting to reports that some taxpayers
got a $300 charitable tax deduction after reading a published
article that the Canadian Jewish Congress said is part of an
anti-Semitic campaign by white supremacists.

He said that the department can't confirm that anyone received such
a deduction. But he added: "If such a claim was allowed, all it is,
is a non-allowable claim that has not been discovered yet."

He also said any taxpayers who made such a claim should contact
Revenue Canada to have their returns reassessed. "Otherwise they
could find that they could be subject to, at least, interest, if not
penalties ... if a person waits until we find that irregularity."

Ronald Lewis, an accountant in Winchester, Ont., said in an
interview yesterday that two of his clients filed claims for a $300
kosher-food deduction - against his advice - and it was not rejected
by Revenue Canada.

"It should have been rejected, that's my feeling," Mr. Lewis said.

The anti-Semitic articles were stapled to the taxpayer's returns in
support of the charitable deduction claim.

They name a number of nationally known brand household products and
the pamphlets say a deduction is allowed for "contribution to
kosher-products tax." They say the manufacturers of these products
collect in excess of $100-million a year that is sent to Jewish and
Israeli organizations.

The CJC says the original story that manufacturers are raising
millions with a kosher tax using "a semi-secret letter code" was
first made in a 1986 article published by a British Columbia white
supremacist group and has periodically been recirculated by other
anti-Semitic groups ever since.

Irving Arbella, national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress,
sent a letter to Revenue Minister David Anderson asking for an
investigation.

"I am profoundly concerned that the Government of Canada or some
minor functionary of the government would take at face value a
clearly and patently anti-Semitic tract and apply it as a legal tax
deduction," Mr. Arbella said.

The CJC contacted federal officials last spring about the claim
being circulated in leaflets and Revenue Canada subsequently advised
all its field offices to disallow such a claim.

Just because something is not caught by the initial cursory check,
"does not mean that it's the end of the matter," Mr. Cleroux said.
=30=


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