Finance committee  That's not been announced yet.

Finance committee  We are all jumping at it. As was noted earlier, there are three measures. There's the qualified donee measure for which broadcasters could qualify and then the two tax credits for which they would not. As was noted, the measures relate to written journalism. That was a decision that the government made.

Finance committee  Yes, that is a component of it.

Finance committee  That is correct.

Finance committee  This is equipment and property that are contained currently in class 43.1, which provides a 30% capital cost allowance rate, and class 43.2, which provides a base 50% capital cost allowance rate. These properties are things like wind projects, solar, certain biofuels, high-efficiency generation equipment and properties like that.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair. I just have two left. The second-last measure relates to the Canadian film or video production tax credit. It provides a 25% refundable tax to qualified corporations in respect of qualified labour expenditures, and it would allow joint projects of producers from Canada and Belgium to qualify for the tax credit.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will provide a short overview of each of these measures in the order in which they appear in the bill. The first measure in part 1 provides a temporary enhanced capital cost allowance, which is essentially tax depreciation in respect of the purchase of new zero-emission vehicles.

Finance committee  Getting into some of the technical details, I'm working through your question. In your situation, if an individual invested in a Madagascar company, when dividends are paid out of that company, they would be subject to Madagascar's dividend withholding tax. I believe the rate is currently 20%, and under the treaty that would be reduced to 15%.

Finance committee  It's just the numbers. Madagascar doesn't impose withholding tax on dividends, but on interest, if you had a bond issued by a Madagascar company, then the numbers I mentioned would be correct. It would be reduced from 20% down to 10%.

Finance committee  Withholding tax is imposed by the foreign state, so it wouldn't be on the Canadian tax return. It would just be how much foreign tax you're paying. It's a bit of a tricky question, because of the specific facts. It might be more likely for a Canadian to invest, say, through their RRSP, in a publicly traded company that might have business activities in Madagascar.

Finance committee  I think that leads back to some of our earlier discussions about certainty for businesses. Of course, there's always the ability to invest abroad, but in making investment decisions, certainty is incredibly important for businesses. While not having a tax agreement in place doesn't prevent investment in a foreign jurisdiction, having such an agreement in place provides additional certainty and makes it more appealing for businesses, because they know there's that kind of framework in place.

Finance committee  Of course, due to privacy laws, I can't imagine that we could provide information from any specific taxpayer's T1134 or T1135, but I take it—

Finance committee  —what you're looking for is aggregate data. As you guessed, we don't have that information on us, but we can ask our colleagues if that is something we would be able to obtain.

Finance committee  Just to add from the business perspective, when a foreign corporation is looking at where to invest or where Canadian companies are looking to invest abroad, items like certainty and predictability are tremendously important. For example, as we discussed earlier, knowing that withholding taxes on dividends would be capped at 5% provides additional certainty.

Finance committee  Generally speaking, yes. Of course the agreement with Taiwan is not a multilateral convention between nations, but the agreements are similar in effect.