Finance committee  So the argument is that for people who have dollars to invest in lots of different countries around the world, one of the key things they're going to look at is the after-tax rate of return on those investments. The more amenable the Canadian choice is to them, the more likely th

Finance committee  I'll take that one. Thank you for the question. You're right in saying that one way to affect outcomes they might want to see is through the tax system. Taxes can affect people's decisions and are one way to get things done, but taxes aren't the only way to get things done. You

Finance committee  I think there is something to what you say. Let me try to defend it this way. The question is how broad a target you're trying to hit. When you try to have a credit for something that is very narrow, you create the incentive to shift things around and you have the difficulty of d

Finance committee  Sure. Let me address that briefly. There are a couple of issues I have with what I refer to as the boutique tax credits. One is that you're eroding the tax base. The government is giving you credits and costing revenue in that way, which means that the tax base is getting smalle

Finance committee  I could start, if that's okay with Jack.

Finance committee  I'm going to pick up on the last thing that Monsieur Laforest said, which is about child benefits and the marginal tax rates that are faced by families in middle income ranges as they earn a bit more income. This is something that Professor Mintz mentioned in his presentation as

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. It's a good one, because that's exactly where some of the problems with dual income tax arise. First, on the self-employment problem, the issue there is to try to separate what's a return to capital and what's a return to the labour of the self-emplo

Finance committee  Thank you very much, and thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee. I'm pleased that the committee has a really broad mandate, because while details are important, it's also useful to maintain a focus on the long-term target, which is a tax system that raises revenu