Thank you, Madam Chair.
Canadians pay taxes when they earn a paycheque, when they buy a house, when they own any property, when they spend money and, of course, even when they die. It does feel, for the average Canadian, that there's no way to avoid the taxman, unless of course you're wealthy enough to set up an offshore tax haven.
Canadians were shocked to learn that the Prime Minister once chaired a pension fund that was deliberately based out of Bermuda, which is one of the world's top tax havens, to avoid paying the taxes—the same taxes that every Canadian family would have to pay.
Could you please explain, in plain terms, what a tax haven is, why corporations use them and what challenges the CRA faces when trying to collect taxes from entities that operate in Canada but shift their profits abroad?