Finance committee  I can just add that this section of the Income Tax Act applies to businesses that have a monthly payroll deduction of $50,000 or more. These are large businesses in the country that are making remittances that range in the millions of dollars, and sometimes as much as over $20 million.

Finance committee  Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the MP for his question. It is clear that in this specific case, it is difficult for us to discuss the details. The member knows full well that we met the community, and we are continuing to work with it to find a very positive outcome.

Finance committee  The summary of the business plans and the performance report are two key documents. Do you want to add something?

Finance committee  It's hard to put a time limit on this. Contrary to business, we cannot say we're not going to do business with you because you're not paying. Also, when an account is under appeal and sometimes goes to court, it stays in the collectible for sometimes years.

Finance committee  There are some rules on when we can start collecting.

Finance committee  The member is right, and he is putting his finger on one of the weaknesses of our system. The current computer infrastructure that we have gives us the debt, but it doesn't necessarily give us the age of the debt. We do have people, for example, in the accounts receivable who paid today for the year 2004, but they haven't paid for 2005, so they stay as a debt.

Finance committee  No, it's not in there. It's in the AG's report; she put her finger on that. We agree with that, and we have plans to renew the system.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Finance committee  In fact, a lot of the issues are dealt with at the local level, and those statistics are not necessarily available. The local manager has the responsibility to ensure that whoever works in that unit has a certain level of respect and courtesy and operates according to the internal code that we have.

Finance committee  We'll complete the question, Mr. Chairman.

Finance committee  Frankly, I was a little surprised, too, with the comments, because what we hear from business is, “Please don't send us three auditors in the same year; just send us one auditor to audit everything.” In the discussion we have when we harmonize tax or when we implement tax agreements on behalf of a province, business usually thanks us, because we have one auditor who comes and audits everything.

Finance committee  It was tabled during the previous session and it was tabled again last week before the Finance Committee.

Finance committee  I leave this up to the Chairman, because the document was tabled last week, at the beginning of this series of testimonies. Now we have come to the end of it.

Finance committee  Yes. In fact, we went from $275 billion to $307 billion over the past five years.

Finance committee  We have not yet reached full capacity. On the contrary, our tests show that if we proceed in a more targeted way, we will collect more money. We could, for instance, audit companies and taxpayers by using a more targeted risk analysis. However, growth has been steady during the past five years.