OTTAWA – Brian Mulroney paid income tax on only half of the $225,000 he received from German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber, a public inquiry learned today.

It was the first time it has become known that Mulroney actually paid taxes on only $112,500 of the money he received in cash payments from Schreiber in 1993-94--not the total amount of income.

Mulroney held off declaring the payments for tax purposes until 1999, when he learned that Schreiber was arrested and charged in Germany with bribery, tax evasion and fraud. Mulroney told the inquiry headed by Justice Jeffrey Oliphant that he didn't pay taxes on the money for several years because he considered the payments to be a retainer.

The amount of taxes paid came as a result of talks with federal and provincial tax authorities, Guy Pratte, Mulroney's lawyer, said. Previous information heard at the inquiry suggested Mulroney had paid taxes on the entire $225,000.

Mulroney also said the scandals that have plagued him have made him the most investigated prime minister in the 142-year history of Canada.

"On July 1, this country will be 142 years old," he told a public inquiry today.

"We've had 22 prime ministers. I have been investigated more thoroughly and at a greater cost than all 21 other prime ministers combined."

Despite that, Mulroney said, no one has ever pinned anything on him: "There was no evidence of any kind that I had ever done anything wrong in my life."

As well, Mulroney admitted that he would have preferred that the controversial payments he received from Schreiber had never become public.

"Obviously, I would have been happier had that not come out," he testified.

Revealing that he received $225,000 from Schreiber would have exposed him and his family to more pressure from police investigators and reporters, Mulroney testified.

He blames them for launching the Airbus investigation that led to Mulroney's successful libel lawsuit against the federal government.

Mulroney was asked about earlier testimony by author William Kaplan, who said the former prime minister waged a "brutal" campaign to persuade him not to divulge the $225,000 payments in a 2003 newspaper article.

"My, my, my--what a sensitive soul," Mulroney scoffed, saying he had faced much more trying verbal jousting in the House of Commons.

Mulroney also suggested he might reveal a key question behind the entire decades-old Mulroney-Schreiber affair – who was supposed to receive money from a secret Swiss bank account set up in 1993 and codenamed "Britan."

The former prime minister said the Swiss account had nothing to do with him. In an apparent attempt to divert attention away from himself, Mulroney said he had been told the codename was actually "Breton" and it was designed to provide money for a prominent Cape Breton figure.

But then he declined to name that person, saying he wasn't going to "trample" on someone else's reputation the way his had been in the years of controversy over the Airbus scandal.

Mulroney has said he received the money from Schreiber to promote the sale of military vehicles designed by Thyssen AG of Germany. Schreiber represented the company, and Mulroney says he tried to promote the sale of Thyssen products abroad.

Mulroney also said today that he wanted a public inquiry with a far more wide-ranging mandate than the one now looking into his business dealings with Schreiber.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

In a swipe at Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who set up the present inquiry after Mulroney requested it, Mulroney said just examining his dealings with Schreiber is inadequate. The commission should go back to 1988 and look into the entire Airbus saga, he said.

"When I was asked, my request was to get this thing emptied once and for all and I especially asked that it go back to 1988 and begin and put 'em all in the box – all the prime ministers, all the ministers of justices, all of them, including the journalists, those who had sworn out false information," he said.

Also this morning, inquiry counsel Richard Wolson said Schreiber, who is recovering at home from gall bladder surgery, will not be able to testify again this week as planned.

Read more about: