International Trade committee  Thank you. From CRA's point of view, we apologize, but we didn't understand the intent of this particular amendment, so we're not able to speak to it.

International Trade committee  Yes, that's correct.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. Limited information will make it very difficult for the Minister of National Revenue to administer and enforce this act.

International Trade committee  If you refer back to clause 2, you'll see that the minister is defined as the Minister of National Revenue.

International Trade committee  Do you have a copy of the subamendment that we could look at, please?

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. Clause 26 as it currently stands is a provision that requires every person who is registered to send in their information basically to the CRA, to the Minister of National Revenue. This is the only place where this occurs throughout the act. This is necessary, of course, for the Minister of National Revenue to be able to administer and enforce the act and to impose the obligations contained within.

International Trade committee  Essentially, if we were to increase the interest rate on amounts that were paid by the minister to individuals by two percentage points, which is the suggestion here, that, in itself, would in fact cause the government to incur additional amounts. In addition, there would be significant infrastructure changes for systems, resources, etc., to change or to make the proposal here possible.

International Trade committee  Bear with me while I review this more closely. To be 100% certain on the amount that would be a cost or attributable to the government, we would have to know, for starters, how many people would be non-compliant in this regime. If there are a large number of people who are non-compliant, and we are in fact charging them less interest, then the government would have less money coming in.

International Trade committee  In what sense?

International Trade committee  Could you repeat the question, please?

International Trade committee  Correct. Our only response to this would be that when the calculations were determined, they were based on other statutes, together with an assessment of the projected value of time and money. That's how the rates were determined in the first place.

International Trade committee  Yes, it would. To have this rate different from the one that exists in other statutes would result in increased costs to the government, not only in the amount of interest paid but also in infrastructure changes.

International Trade committee  Essentially, if we have a non-resident exporter then certainly all the provisions contained within will apply to them as well. Keep in mind that this clause 68 is really a criminal offence. We're talking about summary conviction, so we are talking about a case actually being looked at by the court.

International Trade committee  Just bear with me for one moment while I review the provision.