While tax agencies around the world have already collected more than half a billion dollars from tax cheats identified in the Panama Papers, Canada won’t say if it has collected anything and will not release a number until mid-2020 at the earliest.

Spain alone has collected $122 million (U.S.) in the nearly two years since the leak of tax haven data was made public by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Toronto Star/CBC in Canada. Fourteen other countries have publicly released amounts of taxes recouped from those named in the leak, including Mexico, Australia, Ecuador and Malta, bringing the worldwide total to more than $500 million.

The 2016 leak of documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca set off a worldwide firestorm of anger that ended the careers of the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan. Criminal and tax investigations were launched in 79 countries.

Last year, Mossack Fonseca’s founders were arrested and charged with money laundering after authorities raided the firm’s headquarters as part of investigations into Brazil’s “car wash” bribery scandal.

The Canada Revenue Agency reported last fall that it had started audits of 123 Canadians found in the Panama Papers and launched criminal investigations into “several” more. But it won’t say if it has collected a dime in unpaid tax related to the leak.

“These files are complex and will take time to complete,” said spokesperson Patrick Samson.

Over the last three years, the CRA has collected about $52 billion (Canadian) per year in total tax revenues. However, it said it does not know if any of this was related to the Panama Papers because “it does not trace payments back to the source of the assessment or reassessment,” Samson said.

The CRA reported collection amounts from previous tax haven leaks, including Swiss Leaks, but said it only does so after four to seven years to allow taxpayers to exhaust their appeals.

“The CRA can report on collections from projects by manually reviewing the small number of accounts,” Lavoie said. “We will report on these figures publicly once they are compiled.”

A similar timeline would mean the first results of the Panama Papers won’t be made public until mid-2020.

The Star and CBC published more than 50 reports based on information in the leak exposing tax evasion and avoidance, lax government enforcement, secret commissions, corruption schemes and UN embargo violations.

The investigations also revealed that Canada was being used as a tax haven by foreigners, attracted by our sterling international reputation and lax corporate transparency laws. This process of laundering money through Canada is referred to as “snow washing” and was exposed for the first time last year.

A bill reforming the Corporations Act for the first time in more than a decade has no provisions for ending the use of anonymous corporations in Canada. It is currently working its way through the Senate, where it has been criticized for leaving out any mention of a beneficial ownership registry, a key tool for fighting white collar crime that has been implemented by the U.K. and EU.

“It’s a further indication of the lackadaisical attitude of our revenue agency,” said Senator Percy Downe.

“The middle class is losing confidence (and) comes to the conclusion that there’s two sets of rules: if you hide your money overseas in a tax haven, your chances of being charged, convicted or fined are nil to none. But if you do it domestically, you are going to be chased and hounded.

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“Seems to me the government is at the point now where they should be concerned about the impact this is having on middle class Canadians … Some of them are ready to get the pitchfork and torches out to bring some semblance of fairness back to our tax system.”

Correction – January 18, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the CRA collected about $52 billion (Canadian) each year from tax audits.

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