Jason Kenney

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 3rd, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 56

That Bill C-43, in Clause 46, be amended by replacing line 8 on page 14 with the following:

“paid out of the Agency's annual operating budget.”

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 3rd, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 38

That Bill C-43, in Clause 29, be amended

(a) by replacing line 1 on page 8 with the following:

“29. (1) The Commissioner and the Deputy”

(b) by adding after line 6 on page 8 the following:

“(2) A summary of expenses paid to the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner under this section shall be disclosed to any person on request, and shall be published annually in the Public Accounts of Canada.”

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 3rd, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 26

That Bill C-43, in Clause 20, be amended by replacing line 28 on page 6 with the following:

“from their ordinary place of residence and those expenses shall not exceed guidelines established by Treasury Board respecting travel and living expenses incurred by employees in the public service of Canada.”

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 3rd, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-43, in Clause 6, be amended by replacing lines 17 and 18 on page 3 with the following:

“to the Minister by Parliament.”

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-43, in Clause 6, be amended by replacing line 19 on page 3 with the following:

“(2) The Minister is responsible for all aspects of the”

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 3rd, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-43, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing line 18 on page 2 with the following:

“forcement of the program legislation in a manner that respect the principles of fairness, impartiality and accountability;”

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-43 be amended by adding after line 36 on page 2 the following new clause:

“5.1 (1) In carrying out its responsibilities under section 5 with respect to the administration and enforcement of program legislation, the Agency shall, in its dealings with taxpayers, promote, respect and protect the following rights of a taxpayer:

(a) to be provided with a plain English or French version of any provision of the Income Tax Act on request to the Agency;

(b) to be given the opportunity to provide a general explanation of a question regarding tax liability before being subjected to an audit or a requirement to produce receipts and other records to document the matter;

(c) to have assessments, appeals and other procedures related to tax liability dealt with expeditiously;

(d) to receive any information in the possession of the Agency that shows or tends to show that the taxpayer may be entitled to a refund of tax paid or a reduced assessment of tax owing;

(e) to confidentiality of all information provided by or respecting the taxpayer to the Agency, except as may be necessary for the administration of the Income Tax Act, and authorized by law;

(f) to complain to a designated officer of the Agency of the conduct of or a communication from any employee of the Agency and to receive an explanation of it from the officer, and if necessary, to complain further to the Commissioner;

(g) to refuse to provide information that is not required for the administration of program legislation;

(h) to appoint counsel or an agent to represent the taxpayer at any meeting that deals with liability to pay tax under the Income Tax Act and to record, without being required to give notice, the proceedings of any such meeting;

(i) not to be assessed interest or a penalty on tax found to be owing unless the taxpayer has deliberately evaded the payment of the tax or duty;

(j) in cases where the taxpayer has acted in good faith, to reasonable, negotiated terms of payment of taxes owing so as to avoid undue hardship to the taxpayer and the taxpayer's dependants and employees;

(k) to be subjected to steps to recover tax owing, including the seizure of property or freezing of assets, only if such steps are necessary to ensure payment of taxes owing, and to have the steps taken in a manner that protects, if possible, the interests of the taxpayer's dependants and employees.

(2) The Agency shall include in every annual report made pursuant to section 88, a review of the steps that have been taken by the Agency during the year to fulfil its responsibilities under subsection (1).”

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 3rd, 1998]

moved:

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-43, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 22 and 23 on page 1 with the following:

“(a) that Parliament authorizes the Minister, the”

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 2nd, 1998]

“Coercive”, as my colleague says. A coercive and intimidative culture is not what we want to see in the tax collection agency of parliament and of government.

The official opposition has put forward a comprehensive proposal for a taxpayer bill of rights which would enumerate for the first time in federal law a number of rights to due process for taxpayers in the entire tax auditing and collection system.

Essentially our draft taxpayer bill of rights would include the declaration of taxpayers rights first promulgated by the then revenue minister, Mr. Beatty, in 1985. It would give it teeth, legislative force, and would expand on it. It would essentially ensure in legislation that taxpayers were presumed innocent until proven guilty in the tax process. It would reverse the onus which is now on taxpayers who are too often determined to be guilty until proven innocent by the agents of Revenue Canada.

Furthermore, it would give taxpayers various avenues of appeal which are not now open to them. Currently if taxpayers of ordinary means find, as they find in many cases, that they have been unduly targeted by heartless collection agents at Revenue Canada, they have only one real avenue of recourse and that is through the tax court. The vast majority of people of modest means do not have the resources to use the appeal process through the courts. They cannot hire tax lawyers and spend months and years and tens of thousands of dollars defending their basic rights.

We propose as part of our taxpayer bill of rights the adoption of an office for taxpayer protection that would essentially be an ombudsman to adjudicate legitimate disputes between taxpayers and the revenue agency. It would essentially provide an avenue of appeal far less costly and far more accessible to taxpayers than what currently exists.

These two measures, a taxpayer bill of rights and the adoption of an office of taxpayer protection, would go a very long way toward protecting Canadian taxpayers in the new era of the Canada customs and revenue agency. We can see no good reason, nor has the government offered a single good reason, why a taxpayer bill of rights ought not to be introduced and passed alongside the legislation before us today, Bill C-43.

That is why at the outset of our debate over the next couple of days on the amendments to Bill C-43 I would once again call upon my colleagues in government to consider our sincere, detailed and thoughtful proposal for a taxpayer bill of rights. If the minister were to give us an inclination that he was willing to seriously consider the kind of recommendations we have made, we in turn as the official opposition would seriously consider supporting the bill because of some of the incremental administrative efficiencies that may be achieved by it.

Unless and until the government gets the message that Canadians are not satisfied with the level of fairness and due process in the tax collection system and takes some concrete steps to further entrench and protect taxpayers rights, there is no way we could support a bill which has even a slight potential for spinning out of control into an IRS tax style agency.

Our party opposes put forward by my colleague the Bloc Quebecois in Group No. 1 because they are dilatory motions which seek to delete each clause of the bill. We do not think thee are constructive amendments. We feel that many sections of the bill, including those which these motions seeks to delete, are worthwhile incremental improvements. We will oppose the motions in Group No. 1 and oppose the bill unless amended to include a taxpayer bill of rights.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to debate the motions in Group No. 1 respecting Bill C-43.

The bill is pretty well the only major government piece of legislation before us in this session which proposes to convert the Department of National Revenue into a quasi-independent agency governed by a board, appointed by cabinet and managed by a commissioner appointed by cabinet as well.

The government suggests that this agency would be able to operate more efficiently and would be more flexible in its human resources policies, less bound by the strictures of the current Treasury Board and other statutory guidelines that have hampered its ability to recruit and retain highly skilled professionals in the tax auditing and information technology fields in particular.

The government also suggests that this new agency would be so structured as to work with the provinces on a contractual basis to collect on their behalf provincial source taxes such as provincial corporate and sales taxes.

Given that these are the first amendments before us, I would like to say at the outset that the Reform Party has consistently from the beginning of the debate on Bill C-43 made clear our support for the concept of more flexible management in the public service.

We believe that large sections of the bill are a positive step forward, that by liberating Revenue Canada from the sometimes absurdly bureaucratic regulations in Treasury Board and various statutes on human resources practices the government could be creating an agency which operates in a more businesslike and efficient fashion.

We think this model should not be limited to the tax collection apparatus of the government but rather should be replicated throughout the public service. We do not oppose large sections of the bill dealing with that issue. Nor do we necessarily oppose the creation of a board whose directors would be ostensibly nominated by the various provinces or the prospect of greater federal co-operation with the provinces in tax collection and administration.

However, we have expressed our very grave concern that the bill, absent of some very meaningful amendments, would create the possibility of less accountability in the administration and enforcement of Canada's tax laws.

As I have said before, the power to tax is, next to or along side the criminal law power, the most awesome power which parliament wields. It is the power to destroy economically. It is an enormous power. It is a power that must be exercised with utmost discretion in ensuring in every instance that the democratic representatives of Canadian taxpayers who sit in this Chamber are ultimately able to answer for the practices of our tax collection department.

The last thing Canadians want is an IRS style tax collection agency. The last thing Canadians want is an agency which is a law unto itself, which allows its tax auditors, collectors and agents to enforce the law without regard for the milk of human kindness but with the most rapacious kind of attitude of squeezing money out of taxpayers to the best of their ability. That is not the kind of culture we want to see.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the official opposition, I would concur with the chief government whip because the government has already indicated its intention to invoke time allocation on this bill, so every moment spent reading motions is a moment taken away from debate. I would appeal to all of my colleagues to consider that.

[Questions On The Order Paper, December 2nd, 1998]

For the most recent taxation year data is available: ( a ) what is the percentage of federal income tax collected from the highest 1% of income earners: ( b ) what is the percentage of federal income tax collected from the highest 10% of income earners: and ( c ) what percentage of individuals did not pay any income tax?