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Results: 1 - 15 of 143
View Pierre-Luc Dusseault Profile
NDP (QC)
I will be brief.
Last year, Canadians made investments of $353 billion in the 12 most notorious tax havens. As Minister of Finance, you have a similar budget, that is to say approximately $350 billion for the federal state. What is your reaction to that figure?
View Pierre-Luc Dusseault Profile
NDP (QC)
View Bill Morneau Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'm going to ask Mr. Marsland to answer that question.
What I can tell you, however, is that we introduced several measures in the budget to ensure that we have a system that will protect our economy and allow us to fight money laundering and the funding of terrorist activities.
In our opinion, this is very important for our economy.
Over the past few years, we have done several things to improve the system, notably as concerns effective ownership, so as to know who the real beneficiaries are in organizations.
Mr. Marsland, what do you think of those figures?
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2019-05-01 17:03
I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with the actual numbers you're quoting, so I can't comment on them.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you very much for coming here today.
This is a very important subject, of course, because Canadians lose billions of dollars a year to overseas tax havens. Some estimates are $3 billion or $4 billion, with some as high as $40 billion a year. That's money that could go to increase seniors' pensions, to provide for housing, or to provide supports for our health care system and our education system. This is a very important discussion that we're having here, because Canadians lose so much from the widespread use of tax havens.
I appreciate your coming here today so that we can start going through this bill.
My first question is in terms of the ministry itself. What is your estimate of the amount of money that is invested through offshore tax havens now and the amount of money that we lose? Estimates have varied.
Trevor McGowan
View Trevor McGowan Profile
Trevor McGowan
2019-02-05 11:26
I'm sorry, but we don't have that information with us right now.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Perhaps you could provide it to the committee. The Canada Revenue Agency has estimated that there are $250 billion in offshore tax havens, so I'd be interested in knowing. Perhaps you could get back to the committee about what your figures are. Of course the PBO is doubling down on this too, so we should get some estimates over the spring.
In terms of the number of tax treaties to which the convention applies, it is 75, if that's correct. How many tax treaties does Canada have, and which tax treaties are excluded from this convention?
As my colleague mentioned, the United States is not there. I didn't see Switzerland, which is a notorious tax haven, of course. Do you have a list of the tax havens with which we have agreements and to which this convention does not apply? I'm just looking for a ballpark number. It seems to me that some of the most notorious tax havens are not included.
Trevor McGowan
View Trevor McGowan Profile
Trevor McGowan
2019-02-05 11:28
As my colleague is looking it up, I would say that we of course have the information on which countries Canada has tax treaties with, and also on which countries are involved in the MLI.
With regard to the status of a country being, I think the term was, a “tax haven”, that's not a specific tax term. Some countries have what are known as blacklists. They have lists of countries they consider to be tax havens. There's a bit of vagueness. I don't know if there's a list of countries that definitively qualify or don't, and so it's difficult to answer that aspect of the question.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
What status, then, do we have with tax havens like the Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands? How would you categorize those tax agreements?
Stephanie Smith
View Stephanie Smith Profile
Stephanie Smith
2019-02-05 11:32
We do not have tax treaties with the Cayman Islands or the Cook Islands. We have tax information exchange agreements with those two jurisdictions. Because tax information and exchange agreements deal only with exchange of information and this treaty itself deals with entitlement to treaty benefits, they are not within the scope of agreements that can be covered by this multilateral convention.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
They would be excluded from this. This doesn't change materially our relationship and the current use of the Cayman Islands, for example, as an overseas tax haven.
Stephanie Smith
View Stephanie Smith Profile
Stephanie Smith
2019-02-05 11:32
It would have no impact on the Cayman Islands. That's correct.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you very much. I'll move on to Mr. Kershaw.
You've been very eloquent in determining the importance of the different generational spending. I certainly support your recommendation. There's also the issue of intergenerational revenues.
When we talk about public policy, we're talking about public spending but also public revenues. We now have the Parliamentary Budget Officer who, finally after a five-year struggle under the previous and current governments, has been able to obtain the tax-gap information—the statistics on the money that goes offshore into tax havens. It's estimated to be anywhere from $20 billion to $40 billion a year in lost tax revenues. We will find out within the span of a few months from the Parliamentary Budget Officer what that tax gap is.
Isn't that important to take into consideration as well? I would assume, and we'll find out from the PBO, that it is primarily older Canadians who benefit from these overseas tax havens—in other words, not paying their fair share of taxes. Younger Canadians on salaries are paying their fair share of taxes, and often we're seeing people in low-wage jobs paying more than the corporate CEO who runs the company that they're working for. Shouldn't that be part of the equation as well, this inequality in revenues now that comes from various generations compared to their actual income?
Paul Kershaw
View Paul Kershaw Profile
Paul Kershaw
2018-10-16 11:42
That's an excellent question. It's a very broad question. I'm not an expert on tax evasion offshore. I tend to be somebody who always has to dig into the data, and there's been a dearth of data about offshore issues. I'm happy to hear the PBO is now going to be sharing that more generally with the research community.
Broadly speaking, here are some key things for federal parliamentarians to bear in mind. In the mid-1990s we started to grapple more with the fact that we were going to have an aging population. We said back then with regard to our Canada public pension plan: “Wow, we started this when there were seven workers for every senior. We set the benefits at that level. It's not going to be that way indefinitely.” In the mid-1990s, we had a big conversation about the CPP and adjusted it accordingly.
Ironically, we didn't do the same thing for old age security or medical care, and we should know that about 50¢ of every medical care dollar goes to the population over 65. That's not necessarily a bad thing. As I said, my grandmother uses more than probably any other Canadian in the country, and I'm appreciative of it.
We do have a problem now where, as GDP per capita has gone up, two things have happened: we have reduced income tax rates, although we're able to collect slightly more taxes because people are more affluent; and then we have simultaneously prioritized two things that were built in the past to get additional money. What's happening now is that we ask younger people to spend, over their working lives, what could add up to as much as $18,000 more today than in the past towards medical care and old age security for the loved ones in their lives who are elderly, while then saying on everything else, we're going to have people contribute less in tax revenue.
That is the issue. We're collecting less revenue for everything else, but growing old age security and medical care, which is why, then, a younger demographic is asking how the government will address the big things in their life, why child care still costs as much as a mortgage payment, and why parental leave, despite the changes that have been made recently, still means a major hit to our financial well-being the moment we have a new person in the household.
I could go on, but you don't have much time, so I'll stop.
Mr. Peter Julian: Thank you.
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