'Here we go again' after Canada Revenue Agency pays out another bogus $5M income tax refund, agency insider says

CBC news ^ | Apr 16, 2026 | Harvey Cashore, Daniel Leblanc

[jerod]

'Falsified' return follows previous reports of tens of millions lost to scammers

The Canada Revenue Agency has paid out another $5-million refund to a single taxpayer, this time to a B.C. businesswoman, despite what it now alleges was a bogus return that included "illogical" and "falsified information."

According to court records obtained by CBC's the fifth estate and Radio-Canada, the seven-figure refund was paid out last May to Teresa Wallace. The documents say she typically made $54,000 a year with her hemp and grain processing business in Silverton, 95 kilometres north of Nelson in the West Kootenay region.

Two months after releasing the funds, a CRA affidavit shows the agency believed it had made a huge mistake after realizing it had failed to examine the legitimacy of the requested refund — even though it had been red-flagged for manual review.

"Here we go again. I mean, how many times do you have to learn a lesson?" said a source familiar with the inner workings of the agency who was granted confidentiality because they are not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

"We clearly don't have the right people or we don't have the right checks and balances."

Wallace did not return emails or phone messages left by the fifth estate/Radio-Canada at her hemp company in Silverton

In the fall of 2024, CBC/Radio-Canada began reporting that the CRA approved massive refunds with few or no checks and was hoodwinked by seemingly obvious scams.

One of the cases involved another potentially fraudulent $5-million refund.

Still, the payment to Wallace was issued six months after then revenue minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and then CRA commissioner Bob Hamilton were called in front of a parliamentary committee to answer questions about fifth estate/Radio-Canada revelations that the agency had repeatedly paid out millions of dollars to recipients claiming bogus refunds.

Documents filed by the CRA in Federal Court in January suggest that Wallace's claim was highly implausible from the start...

---

TOPICS: Business/Economy; Canada; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: canada; crime; fraud; theft

[jerod]

Wouldn't it be wonderful to just ask the government to give you $5 million dollars, and the government actually cuts you a cheque for $5 million dollars?

In the meantime... If you owe them any money whatsoever, they start charging you interest from day one and hound you for continuously.

[AZJeep]

That should never happen!
Poor person obviously cannot get that kind of return, but even big business will never ask for that refund, unless they screwed bigly!
Professional accountants know that big return means they gave government big loan.
They, as part of their business, are programmed to pay the government at tax day as much as they can without getting penalized, or at least minimize the return!
No professional accountant will rejoice over big return!
So that kind of return must be fraud or at least it should trigger automatic audit!