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Results: 46 - 60 of 687
View Ted Falk Profile
CPC (MB)
View Ted Falk Profile
2021-06-22 16:44
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Minister, for coming to the committee today. It's good to see you here.
I'll get right into it. Can you tell this committee how many dollars are lost each year to overseas tax evasion?
View Diane Lebouthillier Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Chair, the CRA does not lose money every year fighting tax evasion. With the billion dollars that has been invested by our government, we have managed to recover $5 billion. Mr. Gallivan can provide all of the administrative information my colleague needs.
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-22 16:45
The tax gap reports that the CRA has published transparently would say the number is $800 million to $3 billion for individuals. For multinationals, we're finding about $6 billion, and there's another $6 billion out there.
Therefore, it's $800 million to $3 billion from individuals and about $6 billion from corporations that we're not finding. The tax gap estimates say we're finding about half of it from multinationals.
View Ted Falk Profile
CPC (MB)
View Ted Falk Profile
2021-06-22 16:45
Okay. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that annually we lose $25 billion in uncollected taxes due to overseas tax evasion.
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-22 16:45
I believe that number includes domestic....
View Ted Falk Profile
CPC (MB)
View Ted Falk Profile
2021-06-22 16:46
Okay.
It says overseas. You should know better than I do.
Regardless, budget 2021 proposes to provide additional funding to the CRA to improve its ability to collect outstanding taxes, yet the budget document admits the investment will only lead to the collection of about $5 billion over the course of five years. That's a mere $1 billion per year compared with an annual $25 billion lost.
Minister, to me, recouping $1 billion for $25 billion lost is a failing grade. Your government is raising taxes on Canadians while failing to go after the taxes that are already owed. Why is that?
View Diane Lebouthillier Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Chair, I would like to remind my colleague that when we came to power, we raised taxes for the richest people, but lowered them for the middle class. From the beginning, we were here to help, through the Canada child benefit and the guaranteed income supplement. We instituted measures to help Canadians before the pandemic and during the pandemic, and we are going to be here to help after the pandemic.
I can understand that tax evasion represents money lost, for my Conservative colleague, since it was never a priority for the Conservative government and fighting tax evasion is still not a priority for the Conservatives today.
View Ted Falk Profile
CPC (MB)
View Ted Falk Profile
2021-06-22 16:47
That comment just isn't accurate, Minister. In fact, CRA has launched fewer and fewer audits of large corporations over the last several years. It's actually a 30% drop during your tenure as minister, and of some 30,000 audits of large companies conducted since 2015, less than 20 of them were sent to the CRA's criminal investigation division. Half of those investigations have been abandoned, and a mere one case as been referred to prosecutors.
Is that really the best that this government can do?
View Diane Lebouthillier Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Chair, in 2013‑14, the CRA did only 43 audits in connection with international tax evasion. For 2019‑20, 1,100 audits were done. My colleague said we are doing fewer audits. That is false.
View Francesco Sorbara Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Chair.
Welcome, Minister. It's a pleasure to have you here today and to see you.
This topic is obviously a very important topic. Mr. Chair, as you know, in our first session of Parliament—I believe Mr. Kelly was with us a well—we put together a report called “Confronting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing: Moving Canada Forward”, a beautiful report, 90 pages, that we got to do. That was a good introduction in terms of tax evasion, money laundering and so forth. Our government has done a lot. We did a lot as a finance committee a few years ago. It's great to see also, with base erosion and profit shifting, the resources that the government has put into CRA to be able to undertake this aspect.
Mr. Gallivan, I have a question for you. You were able to briefly touch upon the Income Tax Act and any sort of idea of a public inquiry. Could you expand on those comments that you briefly commented on earlier, please?
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-22 16:50
That's back to the question about the power of inquiry under the Income Tax Act. I think that inquiry is not to be confused with the traditional public inquiry as you might understand it. That power under the act has rarely been used. We've used it once in the last 30 years. Really it's to compel testimony from witnesses who are not otherwise co-operating, so it basically involves contacting the chief justice of the Tax Court of Canada and obtaining a judge who will then question one specific witness. It's seen as advancing a taxpayer's specific file, and it's kind of more operational than I think the committee would like.
There are also over 3,000 pieces of tax litigation involving complex tax matters before the court today. All of those public records are accessible. I would suggest that there is a fairly detailed track record of the agency's activities and the kind of tax planning we're attacking already on the public record that people could make reference to.
View Francesco Sorbara Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Gallivan.
Minister, you've been the minister for the Canada Revenue Agency for a number of years. You have submitted a number of budget requests to the government, and in terms of asking for resources to be provided to the Canada Revenue Agency.
Can you again really touch upon just how much we have invested into CRA because of what you have requested as the minister of the Canada Revenue Agency?
View Diane Lebouthillier Profile
Lib. (QC)
I thank my colleague, who is also my parliamentary secretary, for his question.
Our government has invested over $1 billion in the Canada Revenue Agency. It actually had to organize an entire sector of the CRA so that, as I said, it could provide the resources and tools needed to be able to combat tax evasion. We had lost expertise. We have sought out people, we have signed agreements, country by country, and we are working with the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The CRA works at the international level. That is why it is so important to support the 2020‑21 budget. We are giving ourselves additional tools to ensure that the rules and the laws that enable us to take more effective action against tax evasion are tightened.
View Francesco Sorbara Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'll go back to Mr. Gallivan.
Mr. Gallivan, as you know, at the Canada Revenue Agency, the government has invested significant resources. Can you speak about this in terms of the ongoing breadth of proceedings that the CRA has undertaken, in terms of looking at aggressive tax planning and also, of course, on the tax evasion side, please?
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-22 16:53
Thank you.
I'll frame it in terms of the question about the additional billion dollars a year not making a dent, because I think it's true that the billion dollars a year is a tactical outcome. It's about the type of files that we're taking forward and the jurisprudence we're creating. That's what really has the strategic value. It's true that with an objective to find $5 billion over six years, we're already at $5.3 billion, but that's very operational.
I would again talk about the four cases at the Supreme Court, the many cases at the Federal Court of Appeal and the thousands of cases at the Tax Court, which is kind of trying to redraw the line of what acceptable tax planning is in this country. It's the reason why budget 2021 is now focused on additional lawyers and litigators for the Department of Justice.
Strategically, I think you see increased pressure on a sophisticated tax planning industry, and I think you see increased activism by the Department of Finance to close the loopholes that were surfacing, so in that way, the fight is really, I think, now before the courts, and in terms of the legislation as opposed to the audit floor.
Results: 46 - 60 of 687 | Page: 4 of 46

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