M-605 Independent advisory panel of tax experts

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should appoint an independent advisory panel of tax experts to conduct a comprehensive review of personal, corporate, sales, and excise taxes, and provide detailed recommendations for consideration to the government with an objective of a tax system that: (a) is perceived as fair, internationally competitive, less complex than the current tax system, intelligible to Canadians and minimizes the burden of tax compliance on all taxpayers and that; (b) builds upon the work completed by the independent advisory panel of tax experts created by the government on November 30, 2007, that undertook a review of Canada’s international tax system and provided recommendations for consideration to the government to improve the fairness, economic efficiency and competitiveness of Canada’s system of international taxation; (c) is consistent with the Red Tape Reduction Commission, created by the government on January 13, 2011, that undertook a review of federal regulatory requirements for businesses and provided recommendations for consideration to the government to reduce the burden of regulatory compliance on businesses on a long-term basis; (d) draws on the experience of the United Kingdom’s Office of Tax Simplification that was tasked with collecting evidence and reducing the burden of tax compliance on both businesses and individual taxpayers by conducting inquiries into complex areas of the tax system and providing its government with independent advice and recommendations for reform on areas of complexity in the tax system that could be simplified; and (e) is consistent with the Standing Committee on Finance’s previous recommendations in pre-budget reports that the federal government explore ways to simplify the Income Tax Act to reduce its complexity and burden on Canadian taxpayers, a burden evidenced by the increase of the Income Tax Act to over 3 200 pages since 1917.