Public Accounts committee  I think, Mr. Chair, there are always opportunities to improve any process, and by following the recommendations of the Auditor General, we have enhanced the framework to minimize the risk of any unnecessary deposits being held.

Public Accounts committee  Under the enhanced framework, the review process undertaken by the Canada Revenue Agency will include validation. It will also include additional due diligence. We'll validate with the organization whether there is a legitimate risk of--

Public Accounts committee  In the past, as I said, the policy in place was that we relied on the taxpaying corporation to determine whether they felt there was a risk and that the deposit should be maintained. We did confirm with them on an annual basis, as part of our annual review, whether they still felt the deposit was required.

Public Accounts committee  We review advance deposits on an annual basis, and the CRA has long recognized the importance of managing these deposits--

Public Accounts committee  The agency has had this practice of reviewing the accounts in place since 1991. Based on the information that was available at the time, there was insufficient evidence to conclude that there was any problem or that corporate taxpayers were putting deposits in place for any reason other than to protect themselves against future reassessments.

Public Accounts committee  I do not have that information, but as an example, every year the department does reassessments, and in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 respectively, we completed reassessments of $3.5 billion and $4.6 billion, and we had $4 billion on deposit.

Public Accounts committee  The Department of Finance was aware of the practice we had in place, but as I said, from our perspective there was insufficient evidence to conclude that corporations were doing anything other than keeping deposits with us to protect themselves against future reassessment. From that perspective, there was no need to inform the Department of Finance.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present the Canada Revenue Agency's action plan to address chapter 4 of the Office of the Auditor General’s spring report. The chapter is entitled “Interest on Advance Deposits by Corporate Taxpayers”. I'm beginning my third week as commissioner of the CRA, so I may draw on the expertise of my senior officials, Mr.