BREAKING: The Edmonton Oilers owner’s CEO is being probed for tax evasion, and the court has ordered document handover

The CRA is investigating whether Jürgen Schreiber declared all his assets and revenue for the four years he said he lived in the Bahamas.

OTTAWA — The Canada Revenue Agency is investigating the CEO of the Edmonton Oilers’ parent company over whether he fully declared Canadian income for multiple years when he claimed to live in the Bahamas while working for the Alberta-based organization. Details of CRA’s audit of Jürgen Schreiber, CEO of OEG Inc. (previously Oilers Entertainment Group), and the former head of Rexall and Shoppers Drug Mart, as well as chairman of Aldo Group, came to light in

Federal Court ruling

ordering him to surrender a trove of documents to the tax authority.

According to Justice Glennys McVeigh’s ruling published Wednesday, the tax agency launched its audit into Schreiber in 2022 to see if he had reported all of his domestic and offshore holdings and transactions from the end of 2016 to 2019, years he declared he was residing in the Bahamas. However, the CRA has also claimed “that there is no admissible evidence showing that (Schreiber) was legally a resident of the Bahamas,” according to the ruling.

OEG’s website states

Schreiber joined the Katz Group in 2016, an Alberta-based entertainment, hospitality and retail cannabis giant that owns the Edmonton Oilers NHL franchise and until that year had owned the Rexall drug store chain.

Between 2017 and 2019, Schreiber only reported to CRA some rental income from Canadian properties he owned and reported employment income for 2018 from an unnamed “Canadian employer,” the ruling said.

But the agency was skeptical of that declaration, noting that despite Schreiber declaring himself a resident of the Bahamas from Dec. 28, 2016 to 2019, he still had many ties to Canada.

Those included ownership of two Canadian properties and “continued” employment with Canadian companies such as OEG Inc, retail behemoth Aldo Group, and British Columbia cannabis manufacturer GTEC Holdings Ltd. (now known as Avant Brands Inc.). According to McVeigh, Schreiber also received electronic money transfers from four offshore businesses. The agency also discovered that he formed three Canadian-numbered corporations in 2018 and 2019.In order to verify Schreiber’s residency and tax compliance, the CRA wanted information regarding the seven company companies in which he owned, directed, or was a shareholder in July 2022.

The requested documentation included financial statements, copies of foreign tax returns, organizational charts, details of all dividends made and received, and tax planning documents for all seven firms, according to the order. However, Schreiber denied several of the requests. He maintained that because he was not a resident of Canada for the majority of those years, the agency could not compel him or the offshore entities to disclose documentation. In several circumstances, he asserted that the records did not exist.

Schreiber contended that the CRA “cannot ask for all the details respecting his non-resident related entities (and himself) during his non-resident years,” the judge wrote. The CRA sued the businesses in April 2023, nine months after it initially requested information from Schreiber, claiming that the “majority” of the material requested by the agency remained outstanding. In court, the CRA contended that the Income Tax Act did not allow an individual to avoid tax scrutiny simply by declaring that he was residing abroad.

“Parliament cannot have intended that an individual who has a presence in Canada simply be able to declare themselves non-resident for Canadian tax purposes with the effect of depriving the Minister (of National Revenue) of any ability to verify that declaration,” CRA’s lawyers argued, according to the ruling.

The agency also cast serious doubts on allegations by Schreiber that some corporate records sought by the agency did not exist, calling them “unsubstantiated.”

In her ruling, McVeigh ultimately granted part of CRA’s request and ordered Schreiber respond to some, but not all, of a questionnaire provided by the agency. She also ordered Schreiber to provide much of the information requested of the three Canadian numbered companies he founded in 2018 and 2019.

She also directed the businessman to “request” the same information from his four offshore corporations—Hiroko Holdings, D’Banyan, Eight Treasures, and Retail Invest—and report back to the agency with their responses. Finally, McVeigh chastised Schreiber for not performing a comprehensive search for some of the records he claimed did not exist in 2016, ordering him to conduct a “detailed” search. “(Schreiber) has not established that the records do not exist or that the information is unavailable. “There is no evidence that (Schreiber) made reasonable efforts to obtain this information,” she stated.

In a statement, Schreiber’s legal team, Ron Choudhury, Molly Luu, and Justin Ng of Miller Thomson LLP, expressed satisfaction with the court proceedings thus far. “We will continue to work collaboratively with the CRA on a resolution to the matter,” they stated. They did not say if Schreiber planned to appeal the verdict. CRA spokesman, Sylvie Branch, declined to comment on Schreiber’s case, citing confidentiality restrictions.