Marie-Claude Bibeau

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the above-noted question, what follows is the response from the Canada Revenue Agency, CRA, for the period of January 1, 2020, to December 13, 2023, the date of the question.

With regard to parts (a) and (b), while the question requests data based on those in receipt of the disability tax credit, DTC, namely certificate holders, the CRA’s DTC income data is structured based on claimants.

The one-to-one relationship between claimants and certificate holders is difficult to ascertain, with the possibility of more than one individual being a claimant on the same certificate. For this reason, CRA is unable to provide the income breakdowns of certificate holders, the beneficiaries, and is not in a position to respond in the manner requested.

The CRA has publicly released detailed statistics on the DTC featuring data on the number of people claiming the DTC, amounts claimed and applications accepted and rejected. This information is available at the following website: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/income-statistics-gst-hst-statistics/disability-tax-credit-statistics.html.

This includes data on the number of DTC claimants benefiting through a tax reduction, broken down by net income range. For the most recent such data, please see https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/prog-policy/stats/dtc-stats/dtc-tbl14-2021-e.pdf

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the above noted question, what follows is the response from the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, as of December 6, 2023, that is, the date of the question.

With regard to (a) to (d), the CRA will be unable to provide the requested information until all First Home Savings Account, or FHSA, annual information returns have been processed. Financial institutions will only start filing these returns after December 31, 2023. The returns are due by the end of February 2024.

General information on the filing of T4FHSA annual information returns can be found on the CRA website at https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/registered-plans-administrators/first-home-savings-account/t4fhsa-annual-information-return.html.

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the above noted question, what follows is the response from the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, for the time period of January 1, 2018, to December 1, 2023, namely the date of the question.

General information relating to the CRA’s approach to carousel schemes is available at https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/campaigns/tax-schemes/combatting-carousel-schemes.html.

The CRA’s programs play an important role in preventing the payment of unwarranted refunds, identifying suspicious behaviour, and referring high-risk returns for further review and examination. The CRA has dedicated programs that identify, deregister and safeguard goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax, or GST/HST, accounts that are registered as a result of identity theft, as well as programs that verify commercial activity before the initial GST/HST return is filed. This allows the CRA to close suspicious accounts before a return is filed and an unwarranted refund is paid. These programs are based on enhanced risk assessment tools designed to identify and prevent suspicious entities from infiltrating the filing population.

With regard to (a), the CRA is only able to identify an unwarranted payment through compliance actions. Therefore, there is no systematic way to estimate the amount of all unwarranted payments. As such, the CRA is unable to provide the information in the manner requested.

With regard to (b), for the reason outlined in (a), the CRA is unable to estimate the total amount of unwarranted payments that involves carousel schemes.

With regard to (c) and (d), while the CRA’s collections program tracks payments in many ways, namely by date of payment, account number, revenue line, and program, it is not able to trace payments back to the source of the assessment or reassessment. Additionally, an amount owing can be comprised of debts from various years, various revenue lines and various assessment types. Due to this system limitation, the CRA is unable to provide an amount that has been recovered or provide an estimate of future recoveries in the manner requested.

With regard to (e) and (f), as the CRA does not systematically capture the location of fraudulent companies or bank accounts to which payments are issued, it is unable to provide a breakdown of where companies are located or to where payments have been transferred.

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the previous question, what follows is the response from the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, for the time period of January 1, 2015, to November 27, 2023, that is, the date of the question.

The CRA is unable to provide a response to (a), (b) or (c).

Effective tax rates are not captured on tax forms or schedules, nor in the CRA’s systems and databases, for either individuals or corporations. Computations of effective tax rates are not undertaken by the CRA. Providing the information requested would require an extensive data modeling exercise to produce a tax calculation for which the CRA neither has the requisite expertise nor a tried and tested methodology.

[Small Business, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, who seem to be very concerned, that 80% of businesses have already reimbursed their loans in their entirety.

I also want to remind them that it was this federal government that invested to help businesses during COVID‑19 with rent assistance and wage subsidies. We have a long list of programs with Canada Economic Development and our CFDCs. We are there for small businesses.

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, December 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, as far as the emergency business account is concerned, I would remind members that during COVID‑19, our government was there to support businesses with the wage subsidy, the rent subsidy and the emergency account.

There are plans available for repaying the emergency account. Plan A, the business owner has the money, repays the government loan and qualifies for loan forgiveness. Plan B, the business owner takes out a commercial loan, repays the CEBA and qualifies for loan forgiveness. Plan C, the business owner stays with us for another three years and pays 5% interest.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, December 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I repeat that I am quite confident that our government and the Government of Quebec will reach an agreement. It is true that Quebeckers have been very welcoming. We have worked together. To date, we have transferred $450 million to house asylum seekers. We are covering the cost of temporary health coverage. We are expediting the processing of files. We are ensuring that work permits are issued quickly so that these people can support themselves. I am very confident that we will reach an agreement.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, December 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, again, the Minister of Immigration is in talks with Quebec's minister and I am confident an agreement will be reached. We contribute quite significantly, to the tune of $700 million every year for welcoming immigrants in Quebec. We have transferred $450 million over the past few years to house refugees. For the refugees and asylum seekers, we also provide temporary medical coverage, we are processing files more quickly, we are resettling asylum seekers and we are making it easier to apply for work permits. Yes, we are doing our part.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, December 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, with over 100 million people displaced around the world, there are refugees everywhere. The migration crisis is global, and Canada is no exception. I can assure you that this is on our Minister of Immigration's radar, and I am quite certain that he will reach an agreement with Quebec's immigration minister. Yes, we recognize that Quebec has done more than its share, but we are here to contribute too. In recent years, we have transferred up to $450 million to Quebec just to house asylum seekers. I am absolutely certain that we will make this happen.

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 12th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, what follows is the response from the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, as of October 24, 2023, the date of the question.

With regard to (a), per a review of the records available within its systems, the CRA has held one Canadian resident tenant liable for failing to withhold and remit the tax payable by their non-resident landlord as a result of an audit.

With regard to (b), only one case, which was a commercial tenancy, was found. To protect the integrity of the CRA’s work and to respect the confidentiality provisions of the Acts it administers, the CRA cannot provide taxpayer information or comment on specific taxpayer files.

With regard to (c), the CRA’s Non-Resident Audit Manual contains guidance on the administration of Part XIII of the Income Tax Act in cases where rental income for Canadian properties is received by a non-resident.

With regard to (d), to preserve the integrity of its compliance programs, as a standard practice the CRA does not disclose specific details about its audit or review techniques. However, a general summary of the CRA’s Non-Resident Audit Manual referred to in (c) follows: If a payer fails to withhold the required amount of the Part XIII tax from an amount paid to a non-resident, the payer and non-resident are both liable for this amount and the general practice of the CRA is to assess the payer for any amount owing. However, the CRA’s Non-Resident Audit Program takes into consideration all relevant facts and may instead assess the non-resident.

With regard to (e) and (f), as there are currently no plans to make changes to the CRA’s policies, directives, standards or guidelines on administering Part XIII of the Income Tax Act following the ruling of the Tax Court of Canada in 3792391 Canada Inc. V. The King, 2023 TCC 37, no further details regarding modifications apply in this case.