Finance committee  Sure. Let me give you a couple of topside observations. You know, you talked a lot about working around the world, seeing businesses around the world. When you came back to Canada, you saw that the regime was complicated in Canada in terms of a business operating in Canada that

Finance committee  We need tax reform. And whether it's called Carter II or not, we can debate that issue. I think it is time to have a good step back to look at the whole tax system—the consumption tax system, the corporate system, the personal tax system—and see if we got the balance right and se

Finance committee  No, we don't have the lowest corporate tax rate among all the OECD countries. On the marginally effective tax rate in terms of capital investment, we actually have become very competitive with our move to the GST, etc. In terms of just our overall corporate rates, we are still mi

Finance committee  Just a follow-up on that is that it's pretty clear, certainly given my history in tax over 30 years, that countries around the world use corporate tax policy as a competition vehicle. They use it to attract investment; that's just the reality of the world. Why shouldn't Canada wa

Finance committee  I didn't talk about it in our comments today, but the whole issue of making sure that our capital cost allowance system reflects the economic life of the assets and is competitive is one of the aspects in our written submission. To meet the five-minute time limit I had to cut cer

Finance committee  Do you want to take that first, as the global head of the link?

Finance committee  The whole issue of simplicity in tax policy and tax administration is always a journey. You never reach the goal.

Finance committee  That's just the reality.

Finance committee  That's the pragmatic reality, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep working at it.

Finance committee  There are several points. One, we're not sure all those cutbacks should be made—for example, particularly the exclusion of capital expenditures. Albert may have some comments on that as well. I'd also like to come back to the patent box concept, because the SR and ED program, t

Finance committee  I'm not sure the institute has a view, but my own personal view is that I have always favoured tax policy to incent those things. The marketplace will do it as opposed to government trying to pick winners versus losers.

Finance committee  I will start, and maybe Albert can follow. I don't have particular statistics at my fingertips on either of those things. What I think I could say, though, is that the first patent box I believe was in Ireland, probably about 20 or 30 years ago. It has been replicated in a numbe

Finance committee  I think the red tape reduction panel has had some good successes, but as you said, more could be done. For example, just that comment on regulation 102 and 105.... In 2008 I was vice-chair of a panel on what Canada's international tax policy should be. We recommended changes to t

Finance committee  Right. And the world has changed a lot since.

Finance committee  Income is a lot more mobile than it was then so it is a different world today than it was in 1966. The principles that Carter applied to tax reform may not actually be the right ones today. I think we need to sit back and have a good look in terms of what tax reform should be, go