Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. This afternoon I am joined by Lisa Anawati, the director general of the international and large business program directorate within the CRA. She has direct responsibility for aggressive tax planning. We are pleased to have the opportunity to come before c

Finance committee  Absolutely. I mentioned the increased communication around something like the UE, where we definitely see the value in communicating up front, so people get it right, from the start. I also mentioned the liaison officer initiative, where we've taken 150 auditors and said, no, we

Finance committee  We call people tax promoters, and they're definitely a priority for us, including criminal investigations.

Finance committee  We certainly make use of external assessments and take note. There have been some positive external reports around the tax burden on business, particularly with those measures around harmonization in Ontario, for example.

Finance committee  Certainly BEPS, or base erosion and profit shifting, is a G-20/G-8 concern in which Canada is playing a leading role with the OECD and other organizations. People are talking about country-by-country reporting, and we're talking about multilateral frameworks. So there definitely

Finance committee  It is a trend that we're managing closely; however, I would add that we've taken on responsibility for the provincial sales tax from the Government of Ontario and we've taken on responsibility for corporate tax from the Government of Ontario. Generally, revenues are up, so there

Finance committee  I think that's consistent with our approach that we don't just want to audit, but we want to deter.

Finance committee  It would be in the range of $41 billion. I will correct it and give you the specific number.

Finance committee  I think I'd start with specialized teams, which actually got ahead of our recently released strategy. It was implemented in 2012-13. These are 20 sites where we have specialized teams with specialized experts who are more on the investigative side of our workforce. They did 8,0

Finance committee  That's one of the three pillars in our recently enhanced UE strategy that was released two weeks ago. We definitely want to begin to affect the demand side with consumers, and also partner with other organizations to extend our reach and get the message out.

Finance committee  It's a prevalent problem. The Government of Quebec went forward with a receipting regime, which basically asked businesses to install extra equipment. There was government expense and a lot of red tape. We chose a different path, which is a more significant sanction if it's det

Finance committee  There are a few different objectives there. The first is, again, to collaborate with parties outside the CRA to help them push people in the same direction. I think of cross-communication as an example. The second is to better understand the behaviours and motivations of people

Finance committee  As you may be aware, in 2012 we started a transformation of our criminal investigations directorate function. We made two major changes, one being centralization into six sites to be co-located with the RCMP and the public prosecutor, and the second being upgrading the classifica

Finance committee  Again for clarity, we haven't reduced the number of auditors. We have made a number of changes in terms of specialization, structure, and organizational reporting relationships that sometimes give rise to these misconceptions. I don't have the specific numbers you've quoted in

Finance committee  We work very hard to retain those people and have actually increased the grades and levels. Generally the trend has been upwards, an increase, and we very much recognize the importance of having the right people—skilled, trained people.