Finance committee  Yes, I would say we haven't talked about the larger private businesses. To your point, though, I think the tax we end up with, on savings, as you put it, or passive investment, for taking that money out is quite punitive. It is a 75% rate. The argument is the tax deferral argumen

Finance committee  It should be higher. As the previous questioner talked about in terms of whether it should be higher or lower, it seems that the $50,000 translates to about $1 million at a return of 5%. For a lot of people, if they're relying on that for retirement, $1 million is still a small n

Finance committee  I just wanted to pick up on that comment. I think that, if you just leave it vague and rather open-ended, there's an uncertainty not only for the taxpayer or the tax-filer but also for the administrator of the tax system. This will take a long time to sort out, and the precedents

Finance committee  I guess I would start with the fact that it should be driven by the mandate. Then you would consider who would be involved. I think the mandate, to echo what Kim said, should be comprehensive and broadly based. It should deal with income. It should deal with expenditures. We're l

Finance committee  I think it would partly depend on the case. In very small businesses, the spouse plays an integral role. There should be room in the legislation to allow for income splitting with the spouse, and for that matter, for other small-business related members or third parties to share

Finance committee  Mr. Sorbara, I have just two very brief comments. I think you made some very good points. You made the case that the passive income threshold of $50,000 translates to financial assets of about $3 million a year, and whether that was adequate or not adequate. I think we can debat

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be before you this afternoon. I am grateful for the invitation to come before this standing committee to present the views of the Investment Industry Association of Canada, the IIAC, on Bill C-74, An Act to i

Finance committee  It just seems to me that maybe the challenge is more around the detection of an actual money laundering transaction. The other issue is how difficult it is to prosecute, as opposed to an achieving an actual conviction, then a penalty, and then a recurrence of the crime. I don't t

Finance committee  I can appreciate that FINTRAC doesn't make that a priority, but on the other hand, if there is a suggestion, idea, or concept that, if it were put into place, could reduce the costs for the people who are complying, FINTRAC should not stand in the way of that. More importantly, i

Finance committee  To follow up on your question, it seems to me that the response you got about the burden of complying with FINTRAC and the FINTRAC regulations or the act seemed to be related more to getting greater clarity, and whatever, from the FINTRAC people. I represent an industry that has

Finance committee  Yes, first of all, I think there certainly is a lack of communication. You're citing the legislation. I do know that there is not a problem under the privacy laws, because we're talking about specific transactions with specific dealers who already have that privacy obligation.

Finance committee  Mr. Meunier makes a very good point about the importance of the registry. When I saw the announcements by the governments, I was a bit concerned that they were talking more about the transparency of the system and standardization, which is very important, and maybe putting insuff

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Ian Russell, and I am President and CEO of the Investment Industry Association of Canada, or IIAC. Thank you for the invitation to come before the committee today to present the views of the IIAC. We look forward to

Finance committee  It's a great question. The answer would be yes, for two reasons. The first is the overall shortage of risk capital for small business. What typically happens is that we don't have a problem incubating new companies and starting them out. The clusters have worked very well in Toro

Finance committee  One thing is that there have been studies that demonstrate a lack of sufficient equity capital for small and growing small businesses. You're right. There are schemes out there by government, but they're very small in relation to the size of the business sector and the need for r