The Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) has initiated an audit of the corporate tax returns of doomed crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, the bankruptcy trustee of the exchange revealed.

First reported by The Globe and Mail on Monday, the Canadian tax authority is looking into the tax returns of the defunct exchange from between October 1, 2015, to September 30, 2018.

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“The Trustee intends to discuss the request for information with CRA Audit and their counsel and will return to Court for further direction, if necessary,” the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee Ernst & Young, stated.

A long wait for the creditors

The Canadian crypto exchange came into the limelight after the unexpected death of its 30-year-old CEO Gerald Cotten in December last year. The deceased head of the exchange did not create any backup to recover the passwords of the exchange’s stored digital assets, resulting in the lockdown of cryptocurrency worth millions.

Following the courts’ involvement, the process of recovering the funds, most of which belonged to clients, was initiated earlier this year. The trustee found that the deceased CEO had transferred a significant amount of customers’ funds to his personal accounts and even traded digital assets with them.

“Accordingly, the Trustee is focused on conducting its document collection, organization, review and production efforts in as cost effective a manner as possible,” Ernst & Young added. “It is not expected that the Trustee will be in a position to respond to the CRA Audit request at this time.”

The audit firm also revealed that information requests from agencies like the CRA would affect the final repayments to the 115,000 creditors of the doomed exchange. However, there is no legal ground to refuse the requests of these government agencies.

Along with the CRA, agencies like the RCMP, the Ontario Securities Commission, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation are also investigating the exchange’s collapse.

“The Trustee proposes to produce any requested Devices only to the RCMP pursuant to a Production Demand, if granted, and to refer any other law enforcement agencies and / or regulators requesting access to the devices to the RCMP,” EY added.