Finance committee  Thank you. On behalf of Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee today. Merci pour l'opportunité. October 1 was an historic day for the accounting profession with the unification of CPA Canada and CGA Canada unde

Finance committee  Well, I've been around the tax game a long time. I was the leader of a tax practice of a large firm. In one of my prior lives I was ADM tax policy in the Department of Finance so I came in front of this committee many times. It's really hard to actually peg if it's getting worse

Finance committee  I understand. I was just turning the words around in terms that more complex would be worse. In some respects, there have been some good things that have happened. I think reduction, in terms of the corporate rates, the attempts to broaden the base, anything that reduces rates an

Finance committee  I think the red tape reduction panel has had some good successes, but as you said, more could be done. For example, just that comment on regulation 102 and 105.... In 2008 I was vice-chair of a panel on what Canada's international tax policy should be. We recommended changes to t

Finance committee  Right. And the world has changed a lot since.

Finance committee  Income is a lot more mobile than it was then so it is a different world today than it was in 1966. The principles that Carter applied to tax reform may not actually be the right ones today. I think we need to sit back and have a good look in terms of what tax reform should be, go

Finance committee  There are several points. One, we're not sure all those cutbacks should be made—for example, particularly the exclusion of capital expenditures. Albert may have some comments on that as well. I'd also like to come back to the patent box concept, because the SR and ED program, t

Finance committee  I'm not sure the institute has a view, but my own personal view is that I have always favoured tax policy to incent those things. The marketplace will do it as opposed to government trying to pick winners versus losers.

Finance committee  I will start, and maybe Albert can follow. I don't have particular statistics at my fingertips on either of those things. What I think I could say, though, is that the first patent box I believe was in Ireland, probably about 20 or 30 years ago. It has been replicated in a numbe

Finance committee  Just a follow-up on that is that it's pretty clear, certainly given my history in tax over 30 years, that countries around the world use corporate tax policy as a competition vehicle. They use it to attract investment; that's just the reality of the world. Why shouldn't Canada wa

Finance committee  I didn't talk about it in our comments today, but the whole issue of making sure that our capital cost allowance system reflects the economic life of the assets and is competitive is one of the aspects in our written submission. To meet the five-minute time limit I had to cut cer

Finance committee  Do you want to take that first, as the global head of the link?

Finance committee  The whole issue of simplicity in tax policy and tax administration is always a journey. You never reach the goal.

Finance committee  That's just the reality.

Finance committee  That's the pragmatic reality, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep working at it.