CTV.ca reports that eCommerce tax evaders could soon be sniffed out by computer programs known called Xenon which spiders / crawls the internet gathering information from websites to help catch tax evaders. As more and more people run small businesses on the internet, such as auction, gambling and pornographic sites, more taxable earnings escape the taxman’s net each year. Now Revenue Canada is taking action by helping to test and develop a program created in the Netherlands to catch the tax evaders.
“Xenon works by downloading a web page and its links, thus creating datasets of web content…..Once the spider captures the data, it cross-references the information with national databases and tax records.”
Some people are concerned that governments will use this tool to keep records of internet business and eCommerce activities, however Canada’s tax authorities declined comment when asked by Wired.com what their data-retention policies are.
