Finance committee  Actually, I think FATCA is evolving toward an intergovernmental system, because FATCA, as drafted, really doesn't work very well. It's just incredibly intrusive. The United States has developed several models of intergovernmental arrangements, and it's negotiating currently with more than 50 countries.

Finance committee  Yes, of course. The worst aspect of FATCA is what it did to the United States. It basically deflected large numbers of our resources into writing these incredibly detailed rules for something that's not going to produce a lot of revenue. It never made much sense to me to take people off corporate tax audits and have them writing rules for the rest of the world.

Finance committee  I'm quite familiar with TIEAs. I negotiated one on behalf of the Government of Liechtenstein with the United States. I'm a skeptic about TIEAs or exchange of information provisions having a very broad effect, because they tend to be one-off agreements. I don't disapprove of them as such, but they're not going to solve the problem of tax evasion.

Finance committee  I believe when I was here last time I made the point that automatic exchange of information is something that Canada supports in principle, but in practice it's quite difficult to do—for example, with a jurisdiction that does not have a tax system and thus does not collect any information to exchange with us. There are ways around it, as David Rosenbloom has mentioned. The U.S. FATCA essentially takes away the tax authority by imposing the obligation to collect and provide information, imposing that on the financial intermediary itself.

Finance committee  Thank you. My name is H. David Rosenbloom. I am a tax attorney and a professor of tax law. My area of specialization is international, or cross-border, taxation. I am a member of Caplin and Drysdale, a U.S. law firm.

Finance committee  I thank the committee for the invitation to make this presentation. My name is H. David Rosenbloom. I am private a tax attorney and a professor of tax law at New York University's School of Law. I have specialized for nearly 40 years in international or cross-border taxation.

Finance committee  Thomas Cardamone, managing director for the Global Financial Integrity organization. Welcome. Also by video conference from New York, I want to welcome Mr. H. David Rosenbloom, from Caplin & Drysdale. Mr. Rosenbloom is also attached to New York University School of Law as the director of the international tax program. Welcome. Here in Ottawa, I want to welcome Mr.

Finance committee  It's unique in protecting the U.S. tax base from foreigners using Cyprus to invest in the United States. As I indicated later, that may not be as big a problem in Canada as it is for us, because we will generally reduce our tax down to zero, certainly on interest on royalties down to zero, and increasingly we're doing that on dividends.

Finance committee  I don't think I would endorse nothing at all. The exchange-of-information provision is useful. It has a limited utility. It's basically designed to produce information in specific cases. If a tax administration has a particular taxpayer and the information is in the treaty partner's jurisdiction, a request can be made and you can get the information.

Finance committee  I do not see that. The treaties are designed to avoid double taxation. They're basically focused on foreigners investing in Canada as opposed to Canadian companies investing abroad. I do know enough about Canadian taxation to know that you have a greater degree of connection between your treaty program and your domestic law.

Finance committee  I do.

Finance committee  Yes. The United States has automatic information exchange with many countries. In fact, that's the rule in the United States. I don't know that it is.... Automatic information exchange, as far as I understand, basically involves your turning over the information you collect to the other country on an automatic basis.

Finance committee  From my vantage point, which is of course from the United States and not Canada, I don't have much objection to any of these six agreements, frankly. The two information exchange agreements are broadly consistent with what's in the OECD. The ones with Namibia and Serbia are pretty routine, I think.

Finance committee  The treaties you're examining today basically relieve both excess taxation and, to some extent, double taxation, while protecting the Canadian tax base on inbound investment from abroad. I don't think these treaties have much to do with outbound investment from Canada. Treaties are focused on inbound investment, basically.

Finance committee  I don't think you can look to treaties as a primary tool in the fight against tax evasion, because the function of a tax treaty is basically to relieve taxation. In the United States it's a constitutional matter that you can't use a treaty to increase taxation. To look to a treaty to solve the problem, at least at the corporate level, I think is just looking in the wrong place.