Finance committee  I guess anything that makes labour or capital or services flow more freely across borders is always a good thing. I think all you have to do when you do that is just make sure you have the right standards. What can often happen when you break down various trade barriers is that y

Finance committee  Basically, there are two things I will talk about. One is that the combination of lower tax rates, sales tax harmonization, etc., really incents businesses to grow. When they grow they create jobs, they create value, they earn money. They are more incented to have their head offi

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As in previous years, our analysis, comments, and recommendations are contained in a written submission, which was provided to the committee in August. In our remarks today, we wish to highlight certain areas of that submission that we consider particularly

Finance committee  Okay, I'll be very quick. I think the key issue is that businesses should select the structure that they need for business reasons, not for tax reasons. The environment prior to October 31 was such that there was an incentive to select their structures basically for tax reasons,

Finance committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, on behalf of Canada's 71,000 chartered accountants, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on the issue of income trusts. One of the goals of Canada's chartered accountants is to enhance the quality of financial i

Finance committee  I haven't seen the actual study, so it's hard for me to comment on it. What I would say is that yes, I do agree that commodity taxes generally fall on low-income people. There are various ways of dealing with that. One is cutting the tax. One is increasing the actual GST credit t

Finance committee  I was ADM of tax policy here from 1993 to 1995.

Finance committee  I think there is the benefit of the fiscal dividend in terms of paying down the debt. There's also the actual benefit that it kind of sets the tone in the sense that debt reduction is still important, and reducing that debt-to-GDP ratio as fast as possible is very important. I

Finance committee  There are a lot of questions there. Let me deal with a couple of them. You talked about the fact that Canada's rate was about the average of the G-7. That's a fair comment on where we are right now. Look at a lot of the emerging economies around the world--where India is, and w

Finance committee  That's a good question. I think in our brief we did point out that the level of federal debt is actually in excess of the level of provincial debt, and that's why we still think there has to be a keen focus on paying down the federal debt. The federal debt, per person, is in the

Finance committee  I would answer that in a couple of ways. One is that federal spending is about $200 billion right now. So the way I come at the issue is saying that's a large amount of money, and in terms of looking at your spending going forward keep it within that framework and make sure it do

Finance committee  --what could pay for a lot of these programs.

Finance committee  No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying within the means, you can decide these priorities.

Finance committee  In terms of the issue of where I would like the tax cuts, my preference would be on the corporate side, to reduce corporate taxes and capital taxes to make a more productive country.

Finance committee  On behalf of Canada's 71,000 chartered accountants, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to speak to you today. Our analysis, comments, and recommendations are contained in the written submission, which was provided to you. We wish to highlight certain areas that we cons