Vancouver stock promoter Shaun Ledding and his management company, Core Development Corp., each pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion in Robson Square Provincial Court on Thursday.
In an agreed statement of facts, Core admitted it failed to report more than $200,000 in income from 2002 to 2004, while Ledding admitted he failed to remit $25,142 in GST payments on behalf of Core. Core was fined $33,812 and Ledding $25,142, representing 100 per cent of the GST and income taxes they evaded. (They are also liable, of course, to pay the original amounts owing, plus interest.) Although just 34 years old, Ledding has been involved in the Vancouver stock market for more than a decade. His company, Core Development, provides management services for junior public companies.
Ledding is closely associated with longtime Howe Street promoter David Hodge. Both are senior officers and directors of Zimtu Capital Corp., an investment company that trades on the TSX Venture Exchange. Its core holdings include Commerce Resources Corp. and Triple Dragon Resources Inc., which also trade on the TSX-V. Hodge and Ledding are senior officers and directors of those companies, too. (Some of the income that Core failed to report came from Zimtu and Commerce.)
I don't know Ledding, but I am well acquainted with Hodge. He was director and vice-president of corporate development for Rocca Resources, which in 2000 acquired Siegesoft.com
Inc., which claimed to have developed Internet privacy software. " Siegesoft.com'sinception reads like a storybook," Rocca gushed, describing how a 15-year-old Chicago "whiz kid" had designed the software after he was unable to take an advanced math course.
The whiz kid angle created some positive media coverage and the stock surged, providing a mysterious Turks & Caicos company, which had fortuitously loaded up on shares before the company's announcement, with a huge potential profit. Alas, the deal was later scuttled and Rocca's stock melted.