Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for being here.
First, I have questions about elements in the Minister of Finance’s mandate letter and the way that the department is addressing them.
My first questions are about tax avoidance schemes used by corporations to divert a portion of their profits to tax havens, a perfectly legal practice.
I'd like to read two of the priorities that the Prime Minister assigned to the Minister of Finance:
Modernize anti-avoidance rules to stop large multinational companies from being able to shop for lower tax rates by constructing complex schemes between countries.
Close corporate tax loopholes that allow companies to excessively deduct debt to artificially reduce the tax that they pay.
What does the department know about these schemes? How prevalent are they? Approximately how many companies are using these schemes right now? How much is being dodged in payable taxes every year?