Finance committee  Yes, and we may reflect more on this as well and provide additional information to the committee. Certainly one of the areas of focus through the centres of expertise and others is our work internationally in business intelligence and some of the...I'll call them the inputs into

Finance committee  I think you mean by “prosecute” that it's the number of files we're pursuing, and I think that would get back to the number John was using of some 305. One might say a case could be quite large and significant in terms of the level of effort represented by that one number.

Finance committee  I think the two the member is referring to are the marginal rate reduction and the basic personal allowance adjustments that were announced in the November 2005 changes. These are the two that have to be grandfathered into this budget.

Finance committee  As part of a broader package of tax measures, yes.

Finance committee  The rate reduction that was introduced in the November economic statement saw the rate go to 15% for the 2005 tax year, and it was reintroduced as part of the recent budget. Also, the recent budget essentially established an end rate of 15.5% for the 2006 tax year.

Finance committee  We have not. The sector analysis before the implementation of a tax policy change like that would typically happen at the finance department and other departments; we don't prepare that type of analysis. I would just remind members that of course any costs incurred by business

Finance committee  I think there are some gentlemen from the Department of Finance coming on Wednesday who might be able to talk to you about that.

Finance committee  All I can say is certainly we would be working with CFIB and others to do whatever we can to minimize whatever burden it would be on the private sector.

Finance committee  Yes, it's a legitimate business expense to accommodate this change.

Finance committee  You could probably make that decision with or without the GST. If you felt you needed to buy a cash register in order to run your business, then you could do that now, but certainly you would be able to do it as part of the GST conversion as well. There are no special provisions

Finance committee  I think most small businesses would argue that there are certainly costs in terms of their time and effort--diverted time and so on. That is a cost to them. It may not be a financial cost, but it's certainly a cost, and there's no dollar compensation for that, of course.

Finance committee  What I said is that to effect the 1% rate reduction, we have put in cost estimates for the CRA of approximately $10 million. That covers two years where the revenue that would have been collected.... In other words, the savings back to the taxpayers is about $10 billion. So that'

Finance committee  You can do it that way too, if you want. It's not much of a difference; it's $10 million to effect the changes over two years.

Finance committee  It would be $10 million over two years.

Finance committee  It's $10 million to put in place all of the changes required because of the GST rate reduction. Those expenditures are in this fiscal year, the year just finished and the one coming up.