TORONTO, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Royal Canadian Mint Chairman James Love denied a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. report he helped orchestrate a tax avoidance plan for a wealthy trust fund.
The CBC said court documents filed in a lawsuit that was settled in 2011 show Love and his financial firm Legacy Private Trust helped set up a complicated series of offshore transactions on behalf of descendants of former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, who served two brief terms as PM in the 1920s.
The family sued Love for "breached fiduciary duties" involving $8 million that was transferred out of Canada, but ended up back in the country after the holding company in Antigua that sheltered the funds hired Legacy Private Trust to serve as its investment manager, the CBC said.
Love, who has also served as an adviser on international taxation to Canada's Finance Department, said in an email he had "been involved with literally hundreds of situations where International structures have formed a part of the transactions."
"In each and every case these structures and related transactions are very carefully reviewed to ensure that they are in full compliance with all Canadian tax rules that are in force at the time the transactions are undertaken," he said.
He said Legacy Private Trust had nothing to do with offshore accounts and he did not recall the Stratford Trust, the entity in Bermuda set up to channeled the offshore funds. However, the CBC said court documents, including statements submitted to the court by Love, mention the trust more than 40 times.
The case was settled when defendants agree to pay the Meighen family $8.9 million without admitting guilt.
