Finance committee  A pension plan would not.... But it's not a matter of loading up the trust with debt; it is whether the shareholder has debt. It's not debt at the trust level that's the--

Finance committee  It would not be subject to the new rules if its equity is no longer publicly traded, subject to the few exceptions I described at the outset.

Finance committee  They would not be subject to the present rules unless the U.S. corporation had publicly traded debt. Based on the very first point I raised in my introductory comments, the rules as crafted would apply to a private trust if its parent had public debt.

Finance committee  The trust is a flow-through vehicle regardless of whether it's public—

Finance committee  It would.

Finance committee  I won't speculate as to the motivation for why they're being taken private, but the flow-through nature of any trust would—

Finance committee  I can add a little colour for you. The GAAR rule generally would not apply in circumstances of the double dipping. There's nothing offensive that's happening from a Canadian tax perspective; there's a single deduction of interest that's occurring in Canada. What seems to be offen

Finance committee  Right.

Finance committee  It's because it's affecting the decision-making that's taking place now as to what they're going to do on the SIFTs, because right now there is no rollover rule. There have been positive noises made by officials at the department that a rollover rule will be implemented, but ther

Finance committee  The thin capitalization rules as currently drafted don't apply to trusts, so there'd be nothing for GAAR to apply to. GAAR is nothing more than another section in the Income Tax Act, and its application is in the context of the Income Tax Act and whether or not there's an abuse o

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  It's for a number of reasons. The law partnership is restricted; the members are restricted to lawyers. You don't have the situation of a public corporation, or a corporation or entity with public debt, that is a member of the—

Finance committee  Sure. Assume you have a private corporation, so its equity is not publicly traded. It is a private corporation with equity not traded. It has a greater than 50% interest in a partnership; there are other partners, and they're going to develop a specific property, a resource prope

Finance committee  We've received no commitment from the officials that they will be addressed, and that's why we're before the committee--to ensure that the issues don't get lost in the shuffle.

Finance committee  Thank you. Just by way of background, I'm a tax lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault, and I practise quite a bit in this area of income funds. I am here to talk about some technical deficiencies in the current draft legislation. I'm here not to debate whether or not it should go ahe