Good morning, Madam Chairperson, and thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
My name is Mickey Sarazin. I'm a director general in the legislative policy directorate within the Canada Revenue Agency. I'm accompanied today by Nathalie Dumais, who is the director general of the individual returns processing directorate.
As we've tabled a longer version of the remarks for the committee's consideration, in the interest of time may I simply say that the CRA's mission is to administer tax benefits and related programs and to ensure compliance with tax laws on behalf of the governments across Canada.
In short, the CRA is responsible for administering the Income Tax Act as enacted by Parliament, and our comments today will be confined to the administration role.
The Department of Finance is responsible for policy direction and amendments to the Income Tax Act. We're prepared to discuss the adoption expense tax credit today contained within the Income Tax Act. And we would note that once a child is adopted, parents are entitled to claim all the other benefits that are available to all taxpayers with respect to children.
We're prepared to answer any and all questions this morning.