Finance committee  Thank you. I think your question is at least a mix of policy and administration, but I will speak to what I draw from it in terms of the policy question. In relation to stock options, the Income Tax Act taxes employee stock options as an employee benefit. Depending on the type of stock option, the full amount of the benefit may be taxable, or for certain qualifying options issued at market price at the time the option is granted, there may be reduced taxation of the benefit.

Finance committee  Thank you. To answer the revenue estimate question first, and to fulfill the undertaking to come back to the table on that point in response to Mr. McKay's question, budget 2008 did include the revenue estimates for TFSA. Very quickly, in 2008-09, there's a relatively small amount of $5 million, growing, as tax-free savings grow of course, to $50 million for 2009-10, $190 million for 2010-11, $290 million for 2011-12, and $385 million for 2012-13.

Finance committee  I am Brian Ernewein. Very quickly, I don't have the numbers with me, or those in the 2008 budget, but we will get those and return to the table with them.

Finance committee  I'm Brian Ernewein, the general director of the Tax Policy Branch at Finance Canada.

Finance committee  Yes, we do.

Finance committee  I'm not sure. I think we certainly learned from experience and ended up doing a better job on some of the analysis than when we first started these. But since they have been done, I think they've been done well enough, and presumably they are getting better.

Finance committee  Probably not.

Finance committee  I can't speak to the number itself, but the 2007 budget included an incentive for provinces to reduce their capital taxes by providing a limited period of time during which essentially the tax value or the value of the elimination of the provincial capital tax to the federal government, that is through the elimination of an otherwise deductible cost, would be made up to the provinces.

Finance committee  Their mandate is to submit their report to the minister by December 1 of this year.

Finance committee  Their work is well under way, but I don't think they've mapped out all of their plans for meetings and research at this stage. They're going to be spending at least the next few months engaged in that, to come to views on the contents of their report. It's also not for us to determine for them what they're to do.

Finance committee  In terms of the work they're undertaking to do, they issued a consultation paper in April, which is intended to be the prompt for discussions with the--

Finance committee  Part of the stated mandate of the panel is to build on the proposals put forward in last year's budget and to recommend other measures to improve the competitiveness and fairness of Canada's tax system. So the competitiveness as well as fairness will be considerations that the panel would be expected to take into account in recommending any changes.

Finance committee  I have to challenge the premise of the question, which is that Canada's tax system, including the 2007 measures, didn't take competitiveness into account. I believe that last year's measures in extending the scope of our exemption system, not just to treaty countries but also to countries with which we sign information exchange agreements, will help to bolster competitiveness.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair. My name is Brian Ernewein, and I'm the general director of the tax policy branch at the Department of Finance. As we understand it, we were asked to attend today to speak about the two panels that were set up and for which provision was made in the supplementary budget estimates.