Finance committee  No. I know that some were just signed, but I would not know the number. It's easy to find. We can answer—

Finance committee  I'll be brief. I think if you remove trade barriers, you allow people to work, and when the people work, there's less inequality. Trades people should be able to work. The second thing is to keep it simple for them so that they can focus on working. The more complex their tax r

Finance committee  In a previous life, before I went into the private sector, I worked for the Canada Revenue Agency for six years. So I can see both sides. Unfortunately, the research and development program has become very complex. Right now, with computers being available, the government, and th

Finance committee  It may be that the term “loophole” is what threw me off here. Loophole is something that relates to tax evasion, which is not legal to begin with. It's not something that you make people comply with. It's something that you enforce and stop, so that's what I was referring to: enf

Finance committee  Yes, that was not what I was referring to. I was talking about tax evasion and not reporting income that should be reported.

Finance committee  Not particularly, no. We have heard that there are efforts from the government on disclosure and there are some arrangements between countries. When you have tax arrangements with countries, then you can share information. We understand that the government is working on that, whi

Finance committee  Well, of course, no one in the tax community likes to hear the words “tax loophole” and no one likes to hear about big cases of money flowing outside Canada that is not repatriated on a taxable basis. I believe that's in the review and TEI's presentation. Sometimes the government

Finance committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to participate in the pre-budget consultations leading up to Budget 2013. I am Denis St-Pierre, CGA, Chair of CGA-Canada's Tax and Fiscal Policy Advisory Group. I am a private practitioner from New

Finance committee  Sure, when you say the term “tax loophole”, by its whole nature people don't like that term to start with. It looks like it's not fair. I think everybody should pay their fair share of taxes. The issue with the loopholes is that the legislation is not clear, so it opens up the do

Finance committee  Yes, it's an unfair statement.

Finance committee  A fair assessment is that once the money is in the pocket of the taxpayer, there's been an integration. There have been corporate taxes remitted and there have been personal taxes remitted. The total of that is the same as if the individual were in business. So whether you operat

Finance committee  For sure, this committee should be on that panel to start with. On the composition and all that, I would have to refer you to CGA Canada, Carole Presseault, vice-president. I believe she has a clear idea of what the question is. Unfortunately, she is not here, but I'll get Carole

Finance committee  I believe tax loopholes are the nature of higher taxes and the nature of having complex systems. If everything was a little more simple, you wouldn't need the tax loopholes because it wouldn't be that complex. When you use terms like “all or substantially all” in the Income Tax A

Finance committee  A distinction needs to be made in that regard. People need to understand that investors receive the money after taxes. It is up to the corporation to decide how much to give to its shareholders. Based on my observations, in real life, most of the time, a tax cut results in addi

Finance committee  In terms of statistics, a 2010 study shows that seven out of ten people do not file their own tax returns. This demonstrates that preparing an ordinary personal tax return has become very complicated. There are various kinds of credits, like the one given for public transit pass