Finance committee  I'm Geoff Trueman, the director of the business income tax division in the tax policy branch of the Department of Finance. I am responsible for the capital tax incentive. This was a measure introduced in the 2007 budget to encourage provinces to eliminate or speed up the elimin

Finance committee  Only four provinces took advantage of it, but all provincial general capital taxes will be phased out by the end of the year.

Finance committee  Absolutely. The capital tax elimination contributes to a lower meter, a lower marginal effective tax rate, for Canada. The documentation provided with Budget 2007 indicated a decline of, I believe, 1.3% on Canada's meter. Again, that's a tool that helps to assess the competitiv

Finance committee  The marginal effective tax rate, as best I can explain it, is the tax rate that applies to the last dollar of investment, the marginal dollar of investment. It's shorthand way economists look at this. If you have that dollar to invest, what country will you invest it in? Certainl

Finance committee  That's correct. Canada leads the G-7 with the lowest meter, and we have a very competitive statutory corporate income tax rate, as well.

Finance committee  Sure. I'm happy to respond to that. I think one of the key priorities of the government has been to establish a very competitive business tax environment for Canada, and that's a combination of the statutory corporate income tax rate and the marginal effective tax rate in Canada

Finance committee  Sure.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Well, no. In fact, I think if you go back and look—and I apologize that I don't have it in front of me—you'll see, either in the sixth or seventh update to the economic action plan, a table that shows Canada's statutory income tax rates vis-à-vis other countries, and Canada is la

Finance committee  I don't have an exact number for you. It would be a relatively small subset. The equipment tends to be fairly specialized.

Finance committee  The department receives a number of submissions every year regarding eligibility for equipment under class 43.2. This would have been a technology that would have come up in submissions from some stakeholders.

Finance committee  One example would be that if you own a commercial building, you could purchase a boiler that would burn wood waste, for example, to heat the property. That would be an example of a qualifying application. Similarly, regarding district energy, heat generated by waste-fueled energy

Finance committee  Class 43.2 generally will cover a range of equipment that uses renewable fuels or waste fuels or makes more efficient use of a fossil fuel.

Finance committee  It does include equipment that uses various forms of renewable energy.

Finance committee  I would have to check the specific eligibility of a particular item.