Finance committee  They've said, just on FINTRAC alone, they are over one full-time equivalent, and that's in a very small entity that has a high proportionality cost that gets put on it. Again, as a committee, we also see common reporting standards, FATCA. With all these different measures getting thrown onto these agencies, it gets to be a bit much. Director, are you planning to start measuring administrative compliance by industry? If you don't measure it, you cannot manage it.

Finance committee  Banks and other financial institutions may move out. I hear they have common reporting standards and must show FATCA as well as FINTRAC compliance. Those costs are continually going up, and you come here and say you don't track that. I understand your mission is absolutely necessary, noble, and needs to be done, but that kind of attitude doesn't really promote confidence that you're doing this in the most efficient way.

Finance committee  Could you please address why the law was written in such a way so as not to allow the same treatment as under FATCA?

Finance committee  Okay. I just want to put that out. With regard to the FATCA provisions, those are imposed by the government. They are something that this committee will see. They're in the budget implementation act. You have given the suggestion that there is already another regime created for the American FATCA regulations that works well because it acknowledges that not all institutions—particularly the small ones—have a high risk.

Finance committee  With regard to submitting to the CRA your FATCA reports, how many reports did your organization have to produce?

Finance committee  It is a big mistake for the government to introduce legislation without having some sort of provision à la FATCA where it allows small credit unions to be exempted if they have less than 2% of their assets being held by foreign nationals. It will cause a lot of angst for credit unions. I am thinking particularly of not just the smallest credit unions, where obviously the staff will have to spend more time doing paperwork to submit at the federal government's new behest on these common reporting standards, but also other credit unions which are not structured in the same way as the banks where in Quebec, Desjardins, will have to submit hundreds of applications because they have hundreds of locations.

Finance committee  Okay. This is my last intervention, Mr. Chair, and then I'll let someone else go ahead. FATCA was implemented by the Americans; we really had no say in the matter. However, the OECD requirements are something that Canada voluntarily signed up to. Is that correct?

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2  Credit unions, as we heard right across the country in pre-budget consultations, have had extreme issues in dealing with some of these FATCA regulations. I believe we heard from Desjardins that they have to submit 300-plus separate reports while some other banks only have to produce one. These commons reporting standards will add to that, particularly to smaller credit unions.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2  It really discriminates against small credit unions throughout this country and has caused a fair bit of grief, particularly as we already have similar American regulations to deal with, known as FATCA. My question is this. Does the member support these common reporting standards as they are or does he believe, like many credit unions, that they do need to be changed taking into account the different structures of credit unions in this country?

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1  Lastly, in the budget document there was some talk about credit unions, particularly when it came to international FATCA rules. FATCA was a big issue in the last Parliament. However, more or less, Canadian institutions, all shapes and sizes, have been able to follow up with it. Now the government is talking with other governments about offshore tax evasion, bringing international FATCA regulations, a different regime, to Canada, whether a small institution has sufficient foreign nationals investing their money and a large percentage is not.

Information & Ethics committee  Under the intergovernmental agreement, have any Canadian institutions failed to comply with the IGA, the intergovernmental agreement, to date and been subject to the 30% withholding tax from FATCA? Have there have been instances where there has been failure to comply?

Finance committee  I want to follow up with a few questions with respect to the intergovernmental agreement and FATCA. I think, Mr. Huppé, you talked about $2.4 million to implement the intergovernmental agreement with the U.S. Then, Mr. Stewart, you talked about $15 million allocated over the next few years to enable the implementation of FATCA.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Or do we try to negotiate an intergovernmental agreement in the best interests of Canadians based upon what we are going to have to deal with? Because it is a false choice to say that we can opt out of FATCA. We cannot opt out of FATCA. There is no way we can opt out of FATCA. If we let FATCA happen, then we are going to be faced with up to a 30% withholding tax on the transfers coming in, not only to banks, but also to individuals.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Speaker, when I gave my comments before, I said that one of the unfortunate things about the FATCA part of it is that people are confusing the need to file a tax return in the U.S. with the requirement that we have under FATCA. The situation that the member raised, as troubling as it is, does not change with FATCA, because that is a tax compliance issue that the individual and his family have.

Bill C-31 An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures

Second Session, Forty-first Parliament, 62-63 Elizabeth II, 2013-2014 STATUTES OF CANADA 2014CHAPTER 20 An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures ASSENTED TO 19th JUNE, 2014 BILL C-31 RECOMMENDATION His Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures”.