Finance committee  That's correct, and if you think about the evolution of our business from a tax perspective, especially dealing with multinational corporations, it's so complex now that the biggest growth area for us, frankly, was in cross-border taxation, whether that was international tax, whether that was transfer pricing, whether that was expat tax.

Finance committee  We have not entered into contingent fees for quite some time, except in two areas. There are two areas remaining where we still provide services on a contingent basis and it's because it's industry practice. One area is with respect to GST/HST or provincial sales tax recoveries.

Finance committee  I am now a partner at KPMG Canada.

Finance committee  I was until February 1 of this year. I was the global head of tax for KPMG International.

Finance committee  I like the approach the Canadian government has had over the last number of years around this entire issue on international taxation, as again, there's a perception out there that it's not fair. There have been some recent changes, and making sure the tax authorities have adequate resources to do their job properly I think is important.

Finance committee  It was a nice honour for a Winnipeg boy to have that role, frankly, and it was probably the best job I ever had. I loved it.

Finance committee  It was a little bit of both. I was responsible for the overall strategy for the tax business for KPMG International. I also would have been very cognizant of our responsibility, and that's why we developed and deployed our global tax code of conduct. If you just give me one second, I'd like to read a couple bits of it because I think it's important and it's something that I believe in and have been promoting for four and a half years, frankly, in my previous role.

Finance committee  Right. We are structured internationally as a network of 155 different member firms, so the Canadian firm would be a member firm and the partners in Canada would partake in the profits and losses of that particular partnership.

Finance committee  To your question on the tax gap, there is no Canadian data on the tax gap. A number of jurisdictions around the world analyze what the tax gap is. The tax gap is the difference between what the government expects to collect and what they actually collect. Canada doesn't publish those figures.

Finance committee  It depends on the jurisdiction. There are cultural differences around the world in taxation and in respect of the obligation of the citizen to pay. In Japan, everybody pays their tax because it's the right thing to do. In a lot of other jurisdictions, there's a massive underground economy.

Finance committee  It was a hotline.

Finance committee  I think it's important. The studies that have been done around the world would suggest that people are more willing to comply with their obligations under the income tax rules if they believe their neighbours are complying. The only way society works is if everyone complies and pays what they have to pay.

Finance committee  We have 35,000 tax clients within KPMG Canada, and 15,000 of them are individuals who need help in filing their personal income tax returns. The average fee that we would charge is $1,400 annually for tax returns. We are a Canadian firm. We have offices in North Bay, in Lethbridge, and whatever, and we are helping all kinds of people comply with their tax obligations.

Finance committee  For individuals, we don't offer any offshore tax plans at all today. The legislative world has changed. The 2013 legislation that came in, retroactive to January 2007, gave some good indications of what was acceptable by the Department of Finance and what wasn't. So 2014 was the last year the Department of Finance allowed immigrants to use offshore trusts for putting money offshore.

Finance committee  With respect to tax ideas developed in Canada, we go through four stages, generally. First, there is a technical review, to make sure it fits within the tax law. Second, a partner conducts a technical review to ensure that the first partner got it right. Then we have a review of our general anti-avoidance rule committee, to make sure that it doesn't offend the spirit of the act, that it's not so-called aggressive tax planning.