Finance committee  Well, it's just that if it would be useful to the committee, I can talk a bit about the CRA process.

Finance committee  It's possible. The CRA is implementing an agency-wide mandate, that before any information will be provided, what will happen is that it will go to the criminal investigations program. It will be provided to the headquarters of the criminal investigations program. They are used to dealing with the Criminal Code and things like that and will make an evaluation of that evidence.

Finance committee  I understand the question.

Finance committee  It could, potentially—for example, if someone was convicted of tax evasion and they wanted to let FINTRAC know that was in fact the result of the information that was provided.

Finance committee  I think in fact there are no specific targets as yet with respect to the amount of money to be brought in. There is some experience with the U.S. having its own programs. In at least one of their programs they have raised between $93 million and $250 million a year on their program since 2006.

Finance committee  I'll just situate that amendment. Currently FINTRAC can provide information to the CRA for its enforcement purposes, if certain criteria are met. So it has to be relevant for FINTRAC purposes, and it has to be related to certain CRA purposes. What this measure does is allow CRA to provide information back to FINTRAC relating to how useful the information provided was.

Finance committee  I'll just turn to the exact provision because really we're talking about information that FINTRAC provided to the CRA in the first place. I'll just flip to the exact provision. I would just note that the actual amendment provides that it's to an official of FINTRAC “solely for the purpose of enabling the Centre to evaluate the usefulness of information provided by the Centre”.

Finance committee  Yes, certainly. The Income Tax Act has a provision that in certain circumstances where property is acquired and then subsequently donated to a charity, the fair market value of the property for purposes of the charitable donation tax credit will be the lesser of the cost of the property and its fair market value.

Finance committee  Well, there are two responses to that. For the way it currently works for the review board that certifies the cultural property, at the time they give the certification, they'll actually certify the fair market value of it. Now, to assist the board in doing its certification, there will be an independent appraisal provided by the person who is seeking the certification.

Finance committee  As I just mentioned, this exception to the exception, if you will, that we're putting in only applies to gifting arrangements that are part of a tax shelter. To qualify as a gifting arrangement that is a tax shelter, there have to be statements and representations with respect to the tax benefits that will be given.

Finance committee  In terms of the unlegislated tax measures, just to explain.... When we talk about specific legislated proposals, certainly the Department of Finance keeps a public listing on its website of draft legislation that has been released for comment or provided to the public. So there is a listing on the website of all our proposals.

Finance committee  Without a chart in front of me, I always get sort of lost in the years, but to give a kind of overview, the proposed amendments to the Financial Administration Act that you're talking about essentially would require legislative proposals to be tabled that have been made more than 18 months prior to that October.

Finance committee  The purpose of the legislation is to assist Parliament, taxpayers, and the CRA with legislative proposals that are usually coalesced enough such that taxpayers will order their affairs based on those legislative proposals, and the CRA will begin administering based on those. What we didn't want to do was....

Finance committee  There are two ways to answer your question, and I can only provide information relating to one. In terms of the actual take-up and application of the credit itself, in 2012, the last year for which we have data, approximately 350 companies issued flow-through shares. They were applicable in respect of between 30,000 and 40,000 individual investors.

Finance committee  The department conducts a whole host of studies. I think I would be getting out of my depth as the senior legislative chief here to explain these particular tax measures to start talking generally about the kind of economic analysis the department undertakes.