Finance committee  First of all, that's been a challenge for the agency for a long time in markets like Toronto. People who possess the kinds of skills to do international tax work for the CRA are in tremendous demand by the private sector. They're often recruited from us at a certain point, and we can't do anything about that.

Finance committee  I think that's a reasonable assumption. Perhaps I can just point out that it's extremely important that we do this well. If we don't do this well, we, and I dare say you, will hear from your constituents. We hear from the public and we hear from the stakeholders that they don't know what to do.

Finance committee  They do, and I'll ask the person who actually has to do this for us to answer that question, with the chair's permission.

Finance committee  Perhaps I have part of the answer. In terms of how this relates to the supplementary estimates that would have been requested last year, we will have to search for that. I will put these supplementary estimates (B) in perspective of our overall budget. Before supplementary estimates, we were looking at $3.431 billion, and what's being requested in supplementary estimates (B) is $35.4 million, so it's whatever percentage that is.

Finance committee  Yes. If I may, Mr. Chair, the budget's coming down when it does frankly happens too late for our purposes of having our budgetary plans set for the coming fiscal year, so once the budget is announced, we undertake a very thorough exercise of costing. We try as well as we can to get those in on time for supplementary estimates (A).

Finance committee  No. To my knowledge, the Canada Revenue Agency has received supplementary estimates, either (A), (B), or both, almost every year.

Finance committee  To my knowledge, it's all related to those items I mentioned, which are the federal budget, the agreement with Ontario for corporate income tax, the softwood lumber agreement, and the provincial allocation initiative--but perhaps, Jim, there may be something since then.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, I'll ask my colleague to provide a bit more detail, with your permission.

Finance committee  That is correct. It is roughly $3.5 billion.

Finance committee  Absolutely. The 2006 budget is where the universal child care benefit was articulated. Part of it was the cost associated with mounting the universal child care benefit. That's for 2006 overall. For the purposes of supplementary estimates (B), I do not believe there's any additional amount for that tax measure.

Finance committee  With the Chair's permission, I'd like to turn the floor over to my colleague.

Finance committee  I can only refer to our administrative costs. I do not have figures on additional costs that may be incurred by the Department of International Trade, for instance. The $9.3 million that the Canada Revenue Agency is seeking through supplementary estimates (B) is related specifically to those tasks we are charged with administering.

Finance committee  Sure. Well, certainly, if I may—

Finance committee  I certainly wasn't present when any figure of $10 million came up. My understanding was that was the cost related to the adjustment to the GST. This figure of $30 million is for all the measures that were announced in the 2006 federal budget, and frankly, the GST is a relatively small part of that.

Finance committee  No. The measures related to the provincial income allocation would be for those provinces primarily with which we have corporate tax collection agreements, to make sure we're doing the right thing to ensure the proper allocation. So this would generally not affect Quebec, and it would not affect Alberta or Ontario on corporate tax, because they are not signatories to the agreement.