Finance committee  They do have limits. I am not able to comment to a full extent as to what those limits are. Most of them have to do with how involved the informant is in the particular tax avoidance work or the tax evasion. If they are involved and personally benefiting then there are limits on

Finance committee  I think the one concern with that is that there is a statement in the context of the CRA's guidance documents that they will work to protect the identity, and I'm not sure what the phrasing is, but it's to the effect of “to the extent possible”, something like that. I think that

Finance committee  That is correct.

Finance committee  I do not. I may be able to put something together if that would be of use to the committee.

Finance committee  Certainly. The concern here is that there are obviously different ways that informants could obtain the information that may be useful to the Canada Revenue Agency to go after tax avoiders. It could be in the context of a professional relationship. It could be a lawyer-client r

Finance committee  I agree. Harmonization is something to strive for. It will make the environment simpler. On the government's side, it will make administration easier, and cheaper, frankly. However, I think we all know this can be a long set of discussions, and different provinces and different

Finance committee  I don't think that there's a conclusive answer to any of this, but there's also the obvious theory that taxing corporations is really going to be a tax on their shareholders or on consumers. It all passes through. So I agree with my colleague that this is a complicated tax policy

Finance committee  I would agree with that. I think it is a cultural point of view. I would comment that the United States has even more advanced systems than this in certain tax-related whistle-blowing contexts. In the customs context in the U.S., a whistle-blower would actually do some of the bac

Finance committee  Certainly. You will all know this better than I will, being so closely involved and part of the legislative process. But with any kind of system of new rules—we're creating a new regime or proposing a new regime here—there is a set of overall rules, a framework if you will, that

Finance committee  I can, but I'll preface that with saying that it's an ongoing issue and an ongoing discussion for all of the OECD countries.

Finance committee  I appreciate your comments about the loopholes that have been closed, and this type of thing. I would observe that some of those are not necessarily loopholes in the sense that something was missing. They may represent shifts in policy, where Canada now has this position that the

Finance committee  I think we are one of the leaders in the OECD as far as trying to think about and consider ways to address these issues. But the OECD countries as a whole are very active on this issue and I think we're all proceeding on that basis.

Finance committee  I would say that Canada is doing well in thinking about it, yes.

Finance committee  I don't see those as being different. I think that underlying all of these tax policy choices is the view that everybody should pay their fair share and where the fair share is set depends on who you ask and which kind of provision you're dealing with.

Finance committee  It is an attempt to bring in more tax dollars because this is one of the mandates of the Canada Revenue Agency. It's not to say that they're necessarily doing it without some substance, without particular rules.