Finance committee  Thank you for the question. We're certainly trying to be proactive in this regard. Over the last five or six years at least, we've been issuing tax alerts and news releases on the Internet site, trying to alert investors and Canadians across the country to the risks and pitfalls

Finance committee  I think the only thing we can say is that as a revenue administration, we administer the tax laws and the tax treaties with other countries, including the treaty with Barbados, as approved by Parliament. Treaties are a matter of tax policy. They are the responsibility of the Depa

Finance committee  We believe it's related to a couple of things. One is certainly increased effort, because it followed the $30 million we received in the budget of 2005, and it followed the creation of the 11 centres of expertise. What the centres of expertise do is leverage our entire audit ef

Finance committee  Yes, definitely.

Finance committee  I think the short answer would be both. Certainly the dollar amounts and the complexity of the transactions and the complexity of the law are greatest with the larger corporations, and it's to them that we put a lot of our audit effort. The encroachment into the middle class of

Finance committee  We do have some indications in terms of the scope. I might step back a little bit, though, in terms of the self-assessment system itself. It certainly is a self-assessment system in Canada, although we do have a number of checks and balances in that self-assessment system to en

Finance committee  We can get the actual numbers in terms of the growth in the tax shelters. I simply wanted to indicate that over the years we have noticed a significant growth in the number of tax shelters that are being promoted and in the number of investors who are participating in the tax she

Finance committee  I would say that approximately 40% of the additional tax assessed by the agency is related to large corporations.

Finance committee  I wouldn't be in a position to speculate on the revenue implications of a particular budgetary provision.

Finance committee  Perhaps, as noted earlier, that would be a good question for the Department of Finance from a tax policy perspective rather than to us in our role as tax administrators. In terms of the kinds of consultations we get into, we certainly get asked for our advice on the administrativ

Finance committee  As pointed out, we couldn't discuss the affairs of any particular company or corporation. In terms of the action we take, it might be more accurate to refer to it as an audit than as an investigation. In the Canada Revenue Agency, when we use the term “investigation” it normally

Finance committee  Perhaps I could start, and other colleagues could join in. I would certainly agree with the view that this has been a long-term challenge for a number of years and will likely continue to be a long-term challenge. By definition, the tax havens issue involves other countries arou

Finance committee  I will try to respond to that question. We don't have estimates of tax gap per se or the amount of revenue that perhaps has not been declared by individuals. There's an argument to say there is no set methodology at this point to estimate the amount of taxes in terms of a tax g

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This morning I'm joined by a number of other officials from the Canada Revenue Agency, including Brian McCauley, assistant commissioner, legislative policy and regulatory affairs branch; Wayne Adams, chief technical officer for the Canada Revenue Agency