Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Once again, welcome to the witnesses.
I'm hearing over and over again that the original reason for people doing this tax evasion is typically criminal, or they're hiding money from a spouse because they're about to go into divorce. It's all bad from what I've heard. They were talking about needing to protect their interest to make them come forward. It goes against my philosophy, which is that you do the crime, you pay the time, so to speak. But at the same time, I appreciate your advice on this.
Monsieur Paillé was trying to get to the tax gap and the ability to determine how much is actually missing, how much is actually sitting in offshore accounts. And although it would be nice to know exactly how much is out there, that poses a significant challenge. I think Mr. Cockfield estimated that it's between $5 trillion and $38 trillion, which is really a big spread. It's a huge spread.
Can you just explain to me what the challenges are in actually getting to determine how much is being held in offshore accounts that is tax evasion?