Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand to talk to this very important piece of legislation. As many members in the House may be aware, I had actually started the speech and was a good 10 minutes into it when I was interrupted. Of course, I had to defer it until this fine hour. In spite of the many jokes I have heard tonight about talking about the technical tax act at 11:20 in the evening, it truly is an important piece of legislation. Even though the insomniacs will enjoy it, it is a very important debate we are having in the House tonight.
At this point, I need to pick up where I left off. I had talked a bit about the process and how we actually prepared this important piece of legislation. I had talked about the significant consultation that happened previously, and I also recognized in the House the work of all the finance committee members from all sides in terms of saying that this was an important piece of legislation and that it was time to move forward.
The other items I talked about in my first number of hours were parts 1 through 4, so I will not actually go back through parts 1 to 4. I will pick up right where we left off with part 5 of the legislation.
Part 5 of the legislation is designed with fairness for the taxpayers in mind. It sets out to close tax loopholes to ensure that all Canadians pay their fair share of taxes. Some of the specific things the act would do is close loopholes related to specified leasing property and ensure that the conversion of specified investment flow-through trusts and partnerships into corporations would be subject to the same rules as transactions between corporations. It would prevent schemes designed to shelter tax by artificially increasing foreign tax credits. Finally, it would implement a regime for information reporting of tax avoidance transactions.
As we can see, when this is viewed as a whole, these measures would play a very important role in the government's fight against tax avoidance and would help improve the integrity of the tax system. This is a really important goal, and we are proud of our record. Not only are we moving forward with this landmark piece of technical tax legislation, but our economic action plan 2013 affirms our commitment to making the tax system more fair and equitable for all Canadians.
Setting aside the legislation before us today for just a moment, I would like to remind members why improving the integrity of our tax system is so important. By neglecting to close loopholes that allow a select few businesses and individuals to avoid paying their fair share of tax, ordinary law-abiding Canadians are punished with higher taxes.
We will not let this happen. We are committed to building on our strong record of closing tax loopholes. It is a record that speaks for itself, because we have acted to close tax loopholes more than 50 times. By ensuring that taxes are applied fairly and are consistent with their intended objective, we have gained over $2 billion in added revenue for the government, which is used to fund important front-line services for all Canadians.
I would hope that all parliamentarians would agree that closing loopholes that permit a few select corporations and individuals to skip out on paying their fair share of tax is important. In support of that goal, today's legislation would combat many complex tax planning schemes, as I identified in my remarks a couple of days ago.
I would like to pause here for a moment to note that many provincial governments are looking at this legislation to help guide their further actions, especially when it comes to closing tax loopholes. As a matter of fact, the Province of Ontario tabled its 2013 budget in May of this year. In that document, there was a section on closing tax loopholes that underlined the common belief among all the governments, federal and provincial, that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. As part of its campaign to crack down on tax loopholes, the Ontario government looked specifically at the federal government's technical tax amendments act 2012 for inspiration.
Indeed, let me quote verbatim from page 266 of the Ontario budget document, “In addition, the [Ontario] government will be proposing legislation to introduce new disclosure rules for aggressive tax avoidance transactions similar to the rules introduced by the federal government as part of Bill C-48”. We can see they are even directly referring to the important legislation that we put forward. “This new measure would require taxpayers to report aggressive tax avoidance transactions that attempt to avoid Ontario tax.”
Again, this is an important reason to finally move forward with this important legislation.
I want to assure this House and Canada that, as we move forward, our Conservative government will keep taking the necessary steps to protect the integrity of the tax system. By doing that and helping end tax loopholes, we are going to help keep taxes low for Canadians and their families.
Before continuing to part 6, I want to outline that part 5 also includes numerous, more technical changes. These changes would merely be made to ensure the income tax system works in the same way as the underlying policy intent that guides it.
I should flag that many of these technical changes are relieving, addressing issues identified by individual taxpayers in the course of interacting with their income tax rules and how these rules apply to their own situations.
Finally, we will be looking at implementing an income tax amendment relating to the enactment of the fairness for the self-employed act. Thanks to this new initiative recently enacted by the Conservative government, self-employed Canadians will no longer have to choose between their families and their business responsibilities. I think we can all agree that this initiative was good family policy. It represents one of the most significant positive measures for the self-employed in decades.
The technical tax amendments act, 2012, would make some changes to help fully implement that legislation. Specifically, consequential changes to the Income Tax Act are required in order to provide for a personal income tax credit in respect of premiums paid consistent with the existing credit in respect of employee EI premiums.
Moving on, part 6 of the bill would implement a series of technical improvements to the GST-HST framework, such as relieving the GST-HST on administrative costs of collecting and distributing the levy on blank media imposed under the Copyright Act.
Part 7 of the bill, and I am sure members are waiting for part 7, the last part of the act, simply, would provide for a few minor and administrative changes to the federal-provincial fiscal arrangements act.
Before ending my remarks, let me again thank the members of the finance committee of all parties for their unanimous support of this legislation and their co-operative attitude to ensure a swift implementation; something that we hope continues into this third reading debate. I think all members on the finance committee would agree that, in a nutshell, it is so important to pass this lengthy bill. It would provide certainty for taxpayers, it would make compliance easier and it would improve tax fairness for all Canadians.
Like I did during my remarks at second reading, I would like to finish with a quote from an op ed in the June 2011 edition of The Globe and Mail written by Tim Wach, a respected tax professional with Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP:
When taxpayers are uncertain about their obligations, their trust and faith in the system diminishes....parliamentarians can bring a higher degree of certainty to our tax laws by moving swiftly, in a non-partisan, non-politicized manner, to enact outstanding changes. Let's hope they do just that.
I know I might have a minute left but I think, at this point, I would like to close and, again, just say it is an incredibly important piece of legislation. It is a lengthy piece of legislation. It has been a long time in the making. Certainly, as we have done pre-budget consultations year after year, we have heard from accountants and business people across this country that this is timely and it needs to be done now.