Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. At the current time we are not working proactively in this way because the program has just started. Several people have already called and submitted information. It is fairly difficult for the agency to do what I would call marketing to financial ins

Public Accounts committee  This is a subject that's near and dear to my heart because I was one of the people who negotiated the first five TIEAs. The Canadian government took a step back and looked at what countries are of most interest to Canada. Since that time we prioritized the various countries, whic

Public Accounts committee  Yes. Go ahead.

Public Accounts committee  The legislation only comes into effect January 1, 2015. Right now we're in the process of building the system so that when January 1, 2015 comes along and financial institutions start sending us the information, we will have the systems in place to be able to analyze the informat

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  I would say that at this point we already receive some information from FINTRAC. There's a whole bunch of rules that are in place to analyze certain transactions. So when FINTRAC suspects money laundering and tax evasion, they have the capacity now to provide us with some informa

Public Accounts committee  The informant legislation is not legislation; it's a program. The Minister of National Revenue launched the program in January of this year and since that time, as Ms. Jelmini mentioned a few minutes earlier, we have already started receiving phone calls from various informants.

Public Accounts committee  The 5% to 15% is based on the quality of the information we receive and a number of other factors. We're also relying on best practices of other countries because there are a few other countries out there that also have paid informants programs. We based our program on the best p

Public Accounts committee  There was a mixture of both. There were individuals. There were trusts. There was a mixture of entities.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question. On the criminal investigation front, in the courts, you have to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. That's as opposed to the work we do in the audit world, which is civil assessments. You raise an assessment based on the preponderan

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The whole area of information holding is very complicated. It's an excellent question, because it's something we're faced with often. If the information is held in a bank in another country, we cannot use the Income Tax Act, an unnamed person requirement, t

Public Accounts committee  Sorry, Mr. Chair. I think I need to clarify that the criminal investigations directorate does report to me as well. It's one of six directorates that report to me, but the branch is the compliance programs branch.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, the audit area.

Public Accounts committee  I do not have Mr. Rajotte's report in front of me, but I can say that the sections of the Income Tax Act that set out penalties for third parties have been in existence for several years. It is possible that Mr. Rajotte said that it was fairly difficult—let us admit it—to prove t