Latest news with #Germann
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Portions of several freeways in metro Phoenix will close this weekend: What to know
A few closures and lane restrictions were scheduled for the weekend due to improvement projects along parts of Phoenix-area freeways, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation. The right lanes of the east and westbound Loop 101 (Agua Fria Freeway) will be closed near 51st Avenue all weekend while the westbound Loop 202 was scheduled to be closed May 31 between Gilbert and Cooper roads. The northbound Loop 101 (Price Freeway) ramp to westbound Loop 202 (Red Mountain Freeway) was expected to be closed overnight June 1 to June 2. Drivers should allow extra travel time and plan on using detours as needed, ADOT said. Schedules were subject to change due to inclement weather or other factors, ADOT said. Motorists can check the AZ511 app or call 511 to see real-time highway conditions. Here's what you need to know about traffic closures from May 30 through June 2. The right lanes near 51st Avenue will be closed 10 p.m. May 30 to 5 a.m. June 2 for bridge work, ADOT confirmed. Plan for 51st Avenue to be closed in both directions at Loop 101. Detours: Consider using other nearby cross streets including 35th or 59th avenues. Westbound Loop 202 will be closed between Gilbert and Cooper roads from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 31 for work on a widening project, ADOT said. Westbound Loop 202 on-ramps at Santan Village Parkway, Val Vista Drive and Lindsay Road will be closed, along with the westbound Loop 202 frontage road between Lindsay and Gilbert roads. The eastbound Loop 202 HOV lane will additionally be closed between Cooper and Gilbert roads, ADOT confirmed. Detours: Consider using westbound Pecos or Germann roads to travel beyond the closure or taking westbound U.S. 60 (Superstition Freeway). The northbound Loop 101 ramp to westbound Loop 202 will be closed overnight from 9 p.m. June 1 to 4 a.m. June 2 for pavement maintenance, according to ADOT. Detours: Drivers can consider traveling onto eastbound Loop 202 and exiting at Dobson Road before turning to enter westbound Loop 202. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix area freeways affected by closures this weekend: What to know
CBC
07-03-2025
- CBC
Who's hacking CRA accounts?
Victims of identity theft across Canada want their names cleared after scammers got into their accounts with the Canada Revenue Agency. By Harvey Cashore, Eva Uguen-Csenge, Mark Kelley Mar. 7, 2025 The drive from Kelowna to Creston, B.C., carves south through snow-covered mountains, joins up with the Kettle River and then follows the Crowsnest Highway east as it detours north at Christina Lake. Five hours later, sprawling farmlands welcome visitors on their way into town, 12 kilometres north of the U.S. border. Heidi Germann was born and raised in Creston, travelled the world and then returned to her roots. She says it was community that pulled her home, and a deeply shared history that binds the town together. ADVERTISEMENT Today, Germann, 47, is a waitress at Jimmy's Pub, a central fixture in the close-knit town of 5,500 residents. People here are proud of their identity — stubbornly refusing to adopt daylight time, even when nearby towns went along with it. But identity is exactly what Germann has lost. In late May 2023, someone hacked into her Canada Revenue Agency account, stole her name and used it to get a bogus tax refund from the public purse. She's been trying to prove her innocence ever since. 'I want to know how to get my identity back,' she tells The Fifth Estate. An investigation by CBC's The Fifth Estate has found that Germann is just one victim of many in the latest scam to overrun the Canada Revenue Agency, where imposters take over your tax account by acting as your authorized tax representative. Whistleblowers, leaked documents and multiple victims have painted a picture of hackers repeatedly using a side-door entry to take control of Canadians' CRA account by obtaining the special access codes assigned to third-party tax preparer companies in Canada. Watch the full documentary, 'Tax Hack: Identity Theft,' from The Fifth Estate on YouTube or on CBC-TV at 9 p.m. Friday. Once inside your account, and armed with other stolen personal information like your social insurance number, the imposters file a fake T4 slip with your return, change your direct deposit information and mislead the CRA into paying out a bogus refund in your name, but into the scammer's bank account. All without you ever knowing. These latest schemes come amid revelations the Canada Revenue Agency has paid out tens of millions of dollars to scammers after tens of thousands of taxpayer accounts were hacked over the past few years. 'Canadians will lose trust in the agency,' one CRA analyst wrote, after documenting how 'bad actors' in one case alone had taken over hundreds of Canadians' tax accounts and then duped the agency into paying out more than $6 million. Whistleblowers have said the CRA is misleading the public about how much money is being lost to imposters. 'It literally benefits nobody to hide the reality,' one source said. The Fifth Estate is not identifying some of the whistleblowers in this story because they fear retribution for speaking out. "We are constantly reminded of how bad it could be to breach privacy at work," the source said, yet they believe "no organization in Canada breaches privacy for Canadians more than the CRA." 'Canadians would be shocked to learn the extent to which the CRA is ignoring tax fraud in Canada,' another agency source told The Fifth Estate. 'Tax compliance in Canada has essentially become the Wild West.' Germann's story is also one more example of the CRA paying out refunds without verifying any of the dubious claims, even when a few simple Google searches might have raised red flags in the first place. But this story has a twist — a victim who fought back and tried to turn the tables. If you have been the victim of a hacked CRA account, please email, in confidence, fifthtips@ or call or text Harvey Cashore at 416-526-4704. I. A victim wrongly blamed Over a table at Jimmy's pub, Germann's story unfolds slowly. At first, she said, she was wrongly blamed for filing a bogus tax return by the CRA in 2024. The agency sent Germann, then a guardian of two dependents, a letter threatening to garnish her wages unless she paid back $10,046.90 — even though that was the money the agency had paid out to the scammers. 'That's what freaked me out,' she said. 'I'm responsible for these kids.' Germann said the CRA wrongly alleged she had filed a fraudulent tax return through the tax preparation firm H&R Block at one of their locations in neighbouring Alberta . But Germann knew that wasn't true — she wasn't using H&R Block and hadn't yet filed her taxes that year. So why was the CRA blaming the victim, not the imposter who filed the false return? The Fifth Estate decided to try to find the scammers ourselves. After months of research, the CBC learned that Germann was just one cog in a larger scheme that engulfed H&R Block, a digital online bank in Calgary, a hapless revenue agency and other British Columbians like her whose identities were stolen. And when Fifth Estate host Mark Kelley showed Germann a bank statement she had never seen before with her name on it — used by an imposter — she laughed nervously. 'That's my name,' she said eventually. 'Really creepy.' So who was the fake Heidi Germann? The Fifth Estate was about to find out. II. Tax filer firms and the CRA To fully understand the context of what happened to Germann — and what could happen to you — is to examine how the third-party tax filer industry became big business in Canada and the United States. The top two tax filer firms in Canada, Intuit and H&R Block, are U.S.-owned and part of an annual $14 billion-a-year industry in North America, according to industry research firm IBISWorld. There are hundreds of smaller shops across the country, some online and some you can visit in person. Today, more than 90 per cent of Americans and Canadians file online using third-party tax preparers or their software. The CRA website links to 25 private firms offering software and tax filer services. Unlike accounting firms whose employees have university degrees, the Canada Revenue Agency does not require tax filers to have qualifications. H&R Block advertises a 60-hour online tax school course. For Andre Lareau, an associate professor of tax law at the University of Laval in Quebec City, those tax filer relationships can create an additional layer of exposure, leaving taxpayers' private information vulnerable to hackers. Federal legislation governing data security at the CRA does not apply to tax firms, he says. Testifying before a Parliamentary committee last November, Lareau noted that while the CRA directs Canadians on its website to use third-party tax filers and says it has 'certified' their software, it also tells taxpayers in the fine print that 'it is your responsibility' to check into their 'confidentiality policies.' 'In other words,' says Lareau, 'the CRA encourages you to file your return online, it gives you the link to these platforms, but it warns you that you do so at your own risk.' Both the Alberta and British Columbia provincial privacy offices have told The Fifth Estate that they have received reports of tens of thousands of individual privacy breaches at Canadian tax preparer firms in recent years. For privacy reasons, they will not say which firms were affected or provide more details. In the U.S. last year, H&R Block reported a cybersecurity breach that lasted three months and affected 23,067 customers whose personal information may have been stolen. Former CRA investigator Shawna Roy says she knows first-hand how 'bad actors' have exploited those third-party access codes used to steal the identity of Canadians and receive bogus refunds. After leaving the agency last May, she is speaking out publicly for the first time. Roy told The Fifth Estate 's Mark Kelley she believes the CRA's security systems are so weak that it's a 'free for all' for fraudsters with access to those electronic credentials to 'steal identities of Canadians and exhaust every benefit possible.' Roy says she was assigned to work in an anti-fraud unit in 2020 called the Business Intervention Team, where she was asked to track down fake companies used to file bogus T4 slips. She says that's when she noticed bad actors using tax preparer credentials to hack into Canadian accounts. 'It's hard for me, I feel like at this point now, to trust any of them, any third party … because I just saw so much.' WATCH | The impact of tax fraud: Two years into her assignment, she says, she recommended the CRA audit third-party tax preparation firms to root out imposters and bad actors. She says that didn't happen and that eventually, the CRA disbanded the unit. 'We were all shocked,' she says. 'We didn't expect the team to close at all.' Roy says that she left the agency last May, disillusioned. 'It got to the point where I felt like I found out something that I wasn't supposed to find out,' she said. 'It's been stressful because like every day we think of who's going to be the victim today, whose lives are going to be ruined.' III. The Kelowna victim – and a clue Today, Heidi Germann's CRA account is still frozen. It's been that way since an imposter hacked into her account in 2023. She still hasn't been able to file her real return, which means she hasn't received child tax benefits and other credits. She says that when she finally got through to the CRA's identity protection office, she got a hint about how many other Canadians like her have had their accounts hacked. 'This could take a long time,' she recalls the CRA employee saying, 'because there's so many people.' Germann says her biggest worry is not knowing how her account was hacked, or by whom. 'It makes you feel very vulnerable.' In Kelowna, one man had a clue that could help both of them find some answers. Fearing retribution for speaking out, we have agreed not to use his real name. We will call him Paul. ADVERTISEMENT Like Germann, Paul also had his account hacked by an imposter in the summer of 2023. He got in touch with The Fifth Estate after reading its previous stories about hacked CRA accounts. 'Everywhere I turned, I felt alone,' he said. 'Nobody really wanted to help.' Paul said he, too, got a letter from the CRA in the spring of 2024 implying he was the fraudster. The agency demanded he pay back $30,000 in fraudulent returns the imposter had received within three weeks. The letter was authored by CRA Commissioner Bob Hamilton. 'My gut dropped,' he told The Fifth Estate. 'It's what drove me nuts … I'm the victim and I'm being kicked. I am panicking. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to fix this.' So Paul went on the offensive. And he knew exactly where to start. After logging onto his CRA account, Paul noticed three new 'authorized representatives:' H&R Block. H&R Block Canada, Inc. Rochelle [last name withheld]. But he says he had never used H&R Block. He picked up the phone and called H&R Block in Calgary, where the company is headquartered. 'I am a victim of identity fraud, and I'm trying desperately to get any kind of information I can,' Paul recalls telling the customer service representative. He remembers feeling optimistic after being told that a T4 slip associated with his name had already been 'flagged for review for inconsistencies.' He was given a reference number and says he was told H&R Block would begin a fraud investigation and contact the Calgary Police Service. He waited for months, believing the tax filer firm was working on his case. But as he waited, he got a lucky break — one he was certain would finally bring the case to a close. In February 2024, Paul's parents called and told him he had received a letter in the mail addressed to him from 'DC Bank' in Calgary. Paul moved out of the family home years ago but the letter told him they were closing down his bank account. But Paul didn't have a bank account at the DC Bank in Calgary. He had never heard of DC Bank. 'When I opened the letter, I thought it was fake,' Paul says. 'It was from DC Bank telling me that my accounts are being closed…. And I was like: 'What bank account?'' At first, he says, he thought the letter must have been a scam and cast it aside. And then a light bulb went off. What if that letter was connected to his hacked CRA account? What if his imposter had set up a bank account at the DC bank in his name? He looked up the bank's number in Calgary and spoke to a customer service representative. 'She's like … 'Have you not received any of your refunds?'' Paul recalls her saying. 'There's a lot of money here, there's multiple refunds. Have you not received any of them?' Paul told the DC Bank service agent he was a victim of identity theft. According to Paul, the bank understood the seriousness of the situation, promised to co-operate with a criminal fraud investigation and told him to have the RCMP in Kelowna get in touch. Shortly after that initial call, Paul called back again and this time asked the bank to email him 'his' bank account records. And they did. IV. The prepaid Mastercard There they were: Slightly more than a month of transactions, meticulously documented as money flowed in and out of the imposter's account. There was an initial deposit of $9,372.20 into the imposter's account on July 21, 2023, followed by a series of e-transfers totalling nearly $4,000 to unknown parties. Then a spending spree, financed by Canadian tax dollars: A cellphone store purchase, lunch at a fast food restaurant, an overnight road trip to Banff, including a purchase at the gondola gift shop and an expensive meal at Earl's Restaurant. One month later, there was also an e-transfer of $255 into the imposter's account from someone named Heidi Germann. Paul would later learn that an imposter had also set up a DC bank account using Heidi Germann's stolen identity. For Paul, the bank records were the evidence he needed. He had been nowhere near those locations when that money was spent and could easily prove it. 'That gave me a peace of mind and it proved that I never received those funds,' he told The Fifth Estate. Excited about his discovery, Paul called H&R Block to tell them what he had learned, hoping it would be the catalyst they needed to complete their investigation. But Paul's excitement quickly turned to shock. 'I cannot find you in our system anywhere,' he recalls a customer representative telling him. Even the reference number they had given him when he first called seemed to have disappeared. 'How is it possible that nobody can find my account? Where did I go?" Paul said. 'Where did my information go? Do you people delete these files?" Months later, Paul sent copies of those DC bank records he had obtained — the ones that mentioned H&R Block — to The Fifth Estate. Journalists then consulted independent money laundering and fraud expert Vanessa Iafolla, principal at Anti-Fraud Intelligence Consulting in Halifax. 'Well, my first thought was: 'Boy, does H&R Block and I guess relatedly, DC Bank, have a world of trouble ahead of them,'' Iafolla told The Fifth Estate 's Mark Kelley. 'The fact that people can have accounts set up that are in their name, but they had absolutely no relation to setting up is wild. And especially when those accounts are used to scam the Canada Revenue Agency. That's a real serious problem for the corporations that are allowing their accounts and their businesses to be used in this way.' WATCH | The complex nature of tax fraud: Iafolla says the federal government's Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act requires financial institutions to verify the identity of their customers. It all begged the question: With strict rules in place to ensure clients are who they say they are, how did Germann and Paul's imposters get their bank accounts in the first place? Armed with those bank records, The Fifth Estate was going to try to figure that out. V. The house on 132nd Avenue The grey stucco bungalow on 132nd Avenue Northwest in Edmonton doesn't stand out in this mostly working-class neighbourhood. Across the road, the Big Horn Pub advertises 'VLT, Darts and Pool.' There's a bingo hall just down the street. The house itself has provided a clue about who hacked into both Germann's and Paul's CRA accounts. Fifth Estate journalists tracked the fake T4 slips issued to their imposters to numbered companies both listing that house as their headquarters. A fake T4 slip is an essential ingredient in the scam, needed for the imposters to claim bogus tax refunds. But that means the imposters also need to create fake companies to issue the fake T4 slips. If it wasn't suspicious enough that the T4 slips were traced back to the same residential address, it turned out the sole director of both those companies was the same person. When we knocked on the door, we learned the tenants at the time had since moved out. And the name of that director? It turns out she, too, was a victim of stolen identity, also from British Columbia's Interior. The Fifth Estate is using only her first name, Rochelle, because she also fears her identity may be hacked all over again. 'Oh my God,' Rochelle said, after hearing that a Google search of her full name produced a corporate record claiming she was a director of two fake companies in Edmonton. 'I have set up nothing,' she told The Fifth Estate. Whoever was really behind those companies on 132nd Avenue Northwest, there was a rather obvious clue that might have raised red flags about their authenticity in the first place: The fake 'Rochelle' companies had issued fake T4 slips for work done by employees in 2022. But corporate records show the first company was set up on May 3, 2023. The second company was set up on June 10, 2023. How could a company that didn't exist in 2022 issue a T4 slip for work its so-called employees did for it in 2022? ADVERTISEMENT Nevertheless, the CRA paid out those bogus refunds. But we were about to make another discovery here that would eventually lead to unmasking the identities of at least two of the alleged scammers. A Google search of the address on 132nd Avenue Northwest revealed that another fake company called 'Expedited Enterprises' was set up there in 2022. The company's website had disappeared and its phone number was no longer active. It had claimed to be in the trucking business. But as fake as it was, Expedited Enterprises had listed a second address in St. Albert, just north of Edmonton, for one of its fake directors. The CBC's reference library then conducted what's known as a land title search on that St. Albert address. And this time, a real name appeared. The property had recently been sold to a new owner, but the previous owner was someone named Douglas Poplett. And once again, it didn't take more than a simple Google search to raise alarm bells. A December 2020 story in the St. Albert Gazette said Douglas Poplett and a woman named Christina Cherpak were facing numerous theft charges, including using a 'stolen identity' card. The stolen ID and theft charges against Cherpak were dropped in 2021 and she pleaded guilty to drug possession. Poplett was convicted on several counts, including impersonating someone, possession of stolen property and of violating a release order that prohibited him from being in possession of ID documents or credit cards that didn't lawfully belong to him. According to the courts, Poplett has accumulated at least 71 criminal convictions over two decades, many of them for fraud. Poplett's Facebook page shows that he and Cherpak got married in 2021. Cherpak's social media posts show her making popcorn, then ringing in the New Year with fireworks in 2024. When The Fifth Estate tried to get in touch with Poplett, we learned he is facing unrelated fraud charges. Through his defence lawyer, he declined to speak with The Fifth Estate. Cherpak did not respond to emails and social media requests. VI. The CCTV footage The Fifth Estate returned to the DC Bank records, the ones that showed the spending spree from the bogus CRA refund connected to the tax filer firm H&R Block. Because each purchase was dated and timed down to the second, perhaps some of those locations would have CCTV footage of the imposters. Journalists pounded the phones, but time after time were told the stores could only hand over their footage if law enforcement asked. Others, like Earl's in Banff, said they didn't keep their footage that long. Then there was a restaurant called 'Len'Steves' next to the Ramada Hotel, just off Calgary Trail in Edmonton. The bank records showed there had been transactions at the restaurant on Aug. 23, 2023, at 1:20 a.m. Two days later, there had been a 'purchase refund' of $525. Owner Len Regondola was greeting customers on a cold morning last January when journalists from The Fifth Estate walked in. The reporters acknowledged they had an odd question, but wanted to know if Regondola might have CCTV footage of a day back in 2023. She was shown the bank records where the imposters had received a refund from her credit card machine early in the morning. Regondola's eyes lit up. She recognized the date of the transaction immediately. 'I was robbed that day,' she said. Regondola said that two customers, a man and a woman, had come into the restaurant and stayed late, until well after closing. After the couple left, she realized her credit card machine had been stolen. It was replaced with a similar model, but belonging to another business. The fraudsters then tried to give themselves $25,357 in purchase refunds. Regondola caught the scam early and stopped the transactions. Then she contacted Edmonton police and filed a report. She said she's heard nothing since. Regondola sat down at one of the tables in her restaurant, got out her computer and dove into the records she had put together for the police report. Because her credit card machine had sent transactions to her computer in real time, she was able to look at all the attempts the fraudsters made to get bogus refunds. It turned out they had used multiple credit cards. As we looked through those records with her, one credit card stood out in particular. It was a credit card ending in the four digits 9174. That was the exact credit card that we had been pursuing — a DC Bank prepaid Mastercard that received the bogus refund from the Canada Revenue Agency. Whoever robbed Regondola was also directly linked to the CRA scam. And yes, she did have CCTV footage. Regondola retrieved the files from her phone. WATCH | CCTV footage of alleged imposters: And there they were: A man walked into her restaurant, matching the height and build of Doug Poplett. A few minutes later, a woman came in and looked right in the direction of the CCTV camera, leaving little doubt it was Poplett's wife, Christina Cherpak, the same woman in those Facebook and Tik Tok videos. VII. The H&R Block franchise But that still left unanswered questions for H&R Block. For months, Paul had been asking how 'H&R Block' and 'H&R Block Canada, Inc.' ended up as his 'authorized representative" on his hacked tax account. Not knowing who was really behind it, the question had haunted him for months. He recalled there were three mysterious e-tranfers on the DC Bank Card to unknown recipients – immediately after the bogus refund was deposited. 'I was scared,' Paul told Fifth Estate host Mark Kelley, fearing possible retribution by the fraudster or fraudsters. 'I don't know who is impersonating me.' But in May 2024, he believed this time H&R Block would finally get to the bottom of it. He was put in touch with Chantal Freake, the company's fraud investigator at its Calgary headquarters. She assigned him a new reference number, since his old one had been deleted or gone missing. He says she assured him that this time H&R Block would launch an internal fraud investigation and contact the RCMP. Still, several weeks went by before Freake left him a voicemail on June 27, 2024. 'Sorry that it's taken me a while to get back to you,' Freake said in the recorded message. 'The office that filed the taxes is actually a franchise office. So when we couldn't find you in our system, it is because our franchises have their own systems and we can't see the information.' Paul says it was the last time he heard from H&R Block. It turned out the franchise office that filed Paul's taxes was in Spruce Grove, a community about 35 kilometres west of Edmonton. In January, The Fifth Estate travelled to Spruce Grove hoping to unlock the mystery of how H&R Block ended up entangled in a scheme that defrauded the Canadian treasury — and therefore Canadian taxpayers. If anyone could help unravel how H&R Block came to file those tax returns, it might be Cherry Sekura, the owner of that franchise. Calling from a cellphone outside the storefront location, Mark Kelley got Sekura on the phone. 'We are hoping to get your help,' Kelley said. Instead, Sekura asked Kelley how he got her phone number and asked for his. Then she promptly hung up. The Spruce Grove RCMP told The Fifth Estate it could find no records of being contacted by H&R Block. The anatomy of a scam An example of a scam involving a victim from Kelowna — and how The Fifth Estate tracked down the people behind it Was told he owed $30K to CRA 'Paul' Was given a fake T4 slip with Paul's name by 14988931 Canada Inc. 15105366 Canada Inc. Expedited Enterprises All three fake businesses registered at Has a fake director with an address listed as 132 Avenue Northwest Edmonton Princeton Crescent St. Albert, Alta. Owned by Married Douglas Poplett Christina Cherpak (CBC) The Fifth Estate wrote detailed letters to H&R Block outlining Paul's story, as well as Germann's. We asked about Paul's concerns about his file being deleted, and his efforts to get at the truth. It declined to answer specific questions and instead sent an email questioning The Fifth Estate's journalism: 'You make statements that seek to correlate specific instances of alleged individual identity theft as somehow being related to or the fault of H&R Block Canada. This is simply untrue.' The Fifth Estate 's investigation, H&R Block said, is 'misleading and irresponsible' and based on nothing more than 'speculation.' H&R Block also added that identity theft occurs 'when someone illegally obtains and uses another person's information.' 'This can occur in a multitude of ways that do not originate with H&R Block Canada, including through phishing, skimming, social engineering and mail theft to name a few.' In a statement, DC Bank said it eventually closed down the account with Paul's name after noticing 'abnormal' patterns. The bank was unable to explain how a bank account would have been set up by imposters, adding that H&R Block's policy was to check ID at the time the taxes were filed. 'H&R Block's standard process was to verify the identity of every customer in person through a face-to-face interaction … in accordance with the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering), Terrorist Financing Act…' the Bank said in its statement. The commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency also declined our request for an interview about hacked accounts and stolen identities. 'We respectfully decline this opportunity,' the media relations team responded. In public statements, CRA Commissioner Bob Hamilton has said the agency has 'dedicated teams to address fraud.' The commissioner says the CRA has successfully repelled hundreds of thousands of attacks from bad actors. Whistleblowers told The Fifth Estate Canadians have still not been given a full accounting of money stolen from the public treasury by scammers. One high-level confidential source told us the figure is closer to $500 million in recent years. Canadians should be 'angry, and rightfully so,' the source says. 'But I think that pressure will force people that have been unwilling to change — to change.' For Canadians wondering whether their tax accounts could be hacked, the source put it this way: 'Tax season is coming, it's going to happen all over again.' WATCH | Looking for accountability: Back in Creston, Heidi Germann says she has to pick up extra shifts at Jimmy's Pub to make up for the benefits she has not yet received. She says she has never received an apology from the CRA for falsely alleging she was the imposter. In Kelowna, Paul has not received an apology either — from the CRA or H&R Block for its stalled investigation. And he still worries about who else might have been involved in stealing his identity and disrupting his life. 'I'm one of so many people that unfortunately has been victim to [a] sophisticated scheme. I don't know how big it is. I don't know how far it goes.' Top graphic: CBC, submitted by submitted by Len Regondola/Tim Kindrachuk/CBC | Editing: Janet Davison Related Stories Footer Links My Account Profile CBC Gem Newsletters Connect with CBC Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Mobile RSS Podcasts Contact CBC Submit Feedback Help Centre Audience Relations, CBC P.O. 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Reuters
21-02-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Swiss lawmakers consider linking liquidity backstop fee to capital requirements
ZURICH, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Swiss plans to create a form of safety net for big banks could be delayed as lawmakers consider linking it to requirements to make lenders like UBS (UBSG.S), opens new tab hold more capital to make them safer. On Monday, a parliamentary committee will debate establishing a permanent so-called public liquidity backstop (PLB) and discuss how much banks should contribute to it. A public liquidity backstop provides cash to lenders in serious trouble, and in 2023 Credit Suisse accessed one via an emergency law before the bank collapsed and was bought by UBS. Hannes Germann, a member of the Swiss People's Party from the upper house committee scheduled to discuss the PLB, said he wanted to link the payments banks make to the PLB to how much extra capital lenders must hold. "A link is imperative," Germann told Reuters, saying that if banks hold enough capital they should not need to pay any additional fee to a public backstop. A second committee member, Eva Herzog of the Social Democrats, also saw the backstop and capital requirements as linked but wanted them discussed together for other reasons. She said new academic research should be considered before taking a decision on the PLB, including a Bern University study released in January that found UBS benefited from an effective state guarantee worth billions, due to its status as a systemically important bank. UBS deferred to the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) when asked for comment. The SBA said it backed the introduction of a PLB but did not see the need for a fee to be imposed on banks. The demise of Credit Suisse dealt a serious blow to Switzerland's reputation for banking excellence and both measures are part of the government's drive to make its financial system safer while safeguarding competitiveness. Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter last year indicated UBS could have to hold anything up to 25 billion Swiss francs ($27.8 billion) in extra capital under the new rules. UBS has pushed back, arguing that hefty capital demands would weaken Swiss banking competitiveness. The government is expected to release its proposed capital requirement rules for public consultation in May. The government has proposed making Switzerland's four systemically important banks pay a PLB fee that in 2022 would have been 70 million-210 million Swiss francs ($77 million-$232 million) but the estimate is not final. "It will probably not stay that way," lawmaker Germann said.
