Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to the question posed by the hon. member about our commitment to combat offshore tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance.
In budgets 2016, 2017, and now 2018, our government is investing nearly a billion dollars to crack down on tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. Budget 2018 alone would bring close to $130 million in new investments over five years to combat aggressive tax avoidance while improving our domestic and international rules to close tax loopholes used by certain large multinationals. Thanks to these investments, the CRA is now able to expand its tools and have tools at its disposal to help close in on any individual or corporation that tries to avoid paying its share of taxes.
Our plan is working. In particular, I commend the actions by our Minister of National Revenue for getting us where we are today. Canadians can be proud of our government's international leadership on these matters. Collaboration with international partners is crucial to identifying and taking action against those who are evading and avoiding paying their fair share. In fact, because of our government's action, in 2018 Canada will be able to automatically exchange information with other countries to identify taxpayers with offshore accounts through the OECD's common reporting standard. Compliance actions will be taken according to the information available in each case, including referrals to CRA's criminal investigation program and, where appropriate, to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada for possible criminal prosecution.
However, I want to emphasize that CRA does not depend on leaked lists such as the paradise papers and the Panama papers to tackle the issue of tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. Thanks to our government's investments in the CRA, by the time such leaks occur, the agency is already well advanced in carrying out its work in identifying and pursuing those who are not paying their fair share. For offshore-related files alone, as of December 2017, the CRA has been conducting audits on nearly 1,100 taxpayers and is conducting criminal investigations in more than 42 cases of tax evasion. It will continue to apply penalties to all cases of serious tax non-compliance.
We are delivering on what we promised to Canadians, and that is exactly what we will continue to do, now and in the future.