International Trade committee  I apologize. I'm not in full voice today. The estimates included in the 2007 budget for the elimination of a withholding tax were $10 million for 2007-08, and $180 million for 2008-09.

International Trade committee  I'm sorry; do you mean the collection of withholding tax in respect of interest, or withholding taxes generally?

International Trade committee  I don't have those figures with me. I believe we could obtain them. I could tell you in very rough terms that the withholding tax in respect of Canada-U.S. interest payments is approximately half of the world total, so very generally you'd take these numbers and double them and

International Trade committee  Presuming adoption of the treaty, it deals mostly with the past. In the future, if there is no tax obligation because the withholding tax is eliminated, the payments will be taxable only in the country in which the lender carries on business and is resident. But today the situati

International Trade committee  Thank you again for the question. I think the reality is that foreign financial institutions already have a presence in Canada. They form part of the market. But the elimination of withholding tax does take away one of the impediments to foreign financial institutions lending to

International Trade committee  I would suggest that opening up the markets and eliminating the withholding tax would actually lead, all other things being equal, to greater rate competition. The possibility of a withholding tax can create a differential in rates where one would not otherwise exist. There are

International Trade committee  Thank you. I'm pleased to answer this question as well. What we understood we were asked for the other day was a description—I think the term was a “clause-by-clause description”—of the bill itself, and I know reference was made to that being only one page. In fact, the clauses

International Trade committee  There are at least a dozen current exemptions. The various things that generate an exemption are if it is long-term corporate debt--debt of more than a five-year term--or if it is paid by governments, sometimes two governments. There are those types of situations. Bank deposit in

International Trade committee  Well, thank you very much for the question. I think that in this context, you might be touching upon one of two or three different aspects or features of the withholding tax changes. And if I may, I'll address all three, for the sake of comprehensiveness. First of all, the with

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. The honourable member mentioned that the question had come up before and that we'd provided an answer before. I think that's the correct recollection, and therefore my answer will very much track what I said before when we were here. We don't have a

Finance committee  Yes, I think we can. Statistics Canada has some numbers that we can obtain and forward to you, which talk about the amount of dividends, if my recollection is correct I take it you're speaking of dividends paid to Canada.

Finance committee  I can't speak to the cost. It would have been a matter for the Canada Revenue Agency--additional costs. As the minister has said, when a ways and means motion is tabled the Canada Revenue Agency will generally administer the law on the basis of that motion, which would have led

Finance committee  I'm not aware of there having been such a calculation either with respect to foreign income or with respect to underlying domestic income that may not have been subject to full tax. You asked me about my discomfort level. It probably doesn't matter how comfortable or uncomforta

Finance committee  I believe we can. I'm not sure I appreciate the relevance of that information to the work the Canada Revenue Agency is doing with other countries. They're certainly doing important work to try to identify if there are transactions between countries that are leading to tax avoidan

Finance committee  It's been noted, I think by a private tax practitioner in the press, that these rules have been in place for about 35 years. I think the emergence of double-dips didn't occur the very first day. During the 1980s, largely, is when they started to take hold, and they've probably be