Finance committee  No, it has not.

Finance committee  Let me just add to that. One part of this exercise or effort is to clarify the rules for international business transaction; that's the BEPS work. The other part of this is an increasing collaboration and the development of a multilateral exchange-of-information arrangement whereby it will be easier to exchange relevant tax information with a broader set of countries in the world, including those jurisdictions that are familiarly considered to be those of concern to individuals.

Finance committee  Yes, there is. Political activities are those that seek to: ...further the interests of a particular political party; or support a political party or candidate for public office; or retain, oppose, or change the law, policy, or decision of any level of government in Canada or a foreign country.

Finance committee  I'll find that answer, so as to not take up your time. I'll come back to it.

Finance committee  I think the biggest advantage or the biggest part of those moneys is used to create an electronic application and annual reporting system for charities. Currently their only ability is to file this to us in paper format, which is cumbersome and frankly old world. The moneys that are being sought this year are the first-year funds to start putting in place the IT system that will allow for that electronic interface and exchange, which should significantly reduce the burden on charities to actually file and meet those compliance obligations.

Finance committee  The bulk of those resource requirements are in 2014-15, because we're setting up the front-end system to be able to receive and transmit the information. Then there are some smaller amounts on an ongoing basis in those outer years to manage the ongoing vetting and assure ourselves that the information is of good quality.

Finance committee  I have the number of years. Let me clarify. If I said $15 million, I believe I misspoke. If I might be permitted to correct myself, it's $5.8 million over the period 2014-15 to 2018-19.

Finance committee  I may be able to add something to that. We have measured or taken stock of the number of formal complaints concerning political activities of charities that we have received since 2008-09. They range between 20 and 159 complaints of some sort. I do not have information that breaks down the nature of those complaints, just the fact that we received complaints.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, if I may, I think the question that is being asked is more directly a question for our Department of Finance. It's a policy question issue. I know as we were looking at implementing and putting together the IGA, the intent was to find a way for Canadian financial institutions to be able to respond to and respect the obligations that the FATCA is imposing on financial institutions globally and to do it in a way that would provide them with, if you will, the protections of the existing tax treaties for information exchange that we have with the United States.

Finance committee  The costs that we are working with for our ability to implement the obligations that we have to administer this agreement is funding of, I believe, $15.7 million or $15.8 million, which has been allocated to the CRA to implement this over these next few years. Those costs are principally intended to support the costs of implementing a new electronic form for mandatory filing for financial institutions to be able to file their obligations to us, a database in which we would be able to receive and store that information, and the tools to give us the ability to select files from that database for subsequent transmission electronically to the Internal Revenue Service in order to comply with those obligations.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. I can confirm definitively that the commissioner's statement is accurate and true. The management of the regulatory responsibilities that the CRA has for charities registration, monitoring, and compliance rests solely with CRA departmental officials.