Finance committee  Oh, of course. I didn't say I don't agree with TIEAs. My remarks were directed at the fact that I think they have limited impact because of the way they're generally implemented. They also have.... Sorry?

Finance committee  Yes, of course. Again, I don't know, even in my own country, what the experience has been, but my suspicion is that the number of requests that go out under any given TIEA in a timeframe, within a year, say, is pretty limited. I think TIEAs are more important symbolically than t

Finance committee  Oh, yes, of course.

Finance committee  I think something like that ought to be replicated among developed countries, but perhaps not with always the same countries in the group. My comments reflect a certain feeling that the way in which the OECD has been going, which has been to broaden its membership, makes it less

Finance committee  Well, you've said a lot. Let me start out by saying that I have always admired, insofar as I understand it, the Canadian system. It does seem to be a lot better from a policy standpoint, and I've participated in various policy discussions in Canada about the Canadian system. Our

Finance committee  That's the hardest question of all. I think we all know what the clear havens are. They range from the Cook Islands in the Pacific, which is not used much by our people, down to the Caribbean, where there are multiple islands. There are lots of zero- and very-low-tax places in

Finance committee  I think it's basically separate from transfer pricing. We do not have a GAAR. I'm quite familiar with both the Canadian GAAR, the New Zealand GAAR, and the Australian GAAR. There are problems with GAARs, because although they sound wonderful in general, you still need standards f

Finance committee  Actually, I think FATCA is evolving toward an intergovernmental system, because FATCA, as drafted, really doesn't work very well. It's just incredibly intrusive. The United States has developed several models of intergovernmental arrangements, and it's negotiating currently with

Finance committee  I actually think that what I said earlier, about forming some kind of a group of similarly-minded developed countries, is the most positive thing you can do. Some countries have blacklists, some countries have white lists. But the bottom line, when I speak of something simple,

Finance committee  Yes, of course. The worst aspect of FATCA is what it did to the United States. It basically deflected large numbers of our resources into writing these incredibly detailed rules for something that's not going to produce a lot of revenue. It never made much sense to me to take pe

Finance committee  I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer that. I'm not an economist, and these macro effects are just things I read about with interest. The only thing that I would comment on, that your question prompts me to observe, and that is I think quite interesting and worth thinking about,

Finance committee  I have a specific suggestion that might actually make some sense for you to think about. I think it would make sense in this area—and probably other areas, but let's limit it to this—for a relatively limited group of developed countries to get together, maybe on an ongoing basis,

Finance committee  Absolutely. This is a rule-based system. This isn't just a lot of concepts and research: we have to have rules.

Finance committee  Well, yes. Again, I'm influenced by the U.S. experience, but I think we make a huge mistake in trying to put a one-size-fits-all rule out there so that we treat these tax havens the same as Japan. To me, that's tying one arm behind our back. The other thing we do in my country—I

Finance committee  That's a very fair question. In my experience, most publicly owned corporations do not often engage in criminal behaviour in the tax area. What they're doing is by and large legal; the problem is that the laws allow them to take fairly aggressive positions. The biggest constrain