Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming today.
I want to start off with Mr. Sands. We've heard a lot of feedback on the tax proposals, whether in the riding or here in Ottawa in the finance committee. It's actually great to see so many people come out and share their thoughts. I've mentioned this before and I'll mention it again. This is a great way to engage Canadians in developing better policy.
Some things that I think everybody can probably agree on is that the Income Tax Act needs to be more simple, more clear, and more predictable, so that we don't need lawyers or accountants to be hired anymore. If you are living in Canada, you should be able to understand the Income Tax Act. That's a really good take-away.
One thing I really appreciated from your testimony was that you gave a pretty good proposal on income sprinkling. You said that, if there is no reasonable contribution to the corporation, you shouldn't be able to sprinkle the income. I think a lot of Canadians would agree with that statement. You also emphasized that, just because we're changing that rule, it shouldn't mean we shouldn't help small businesses in another way, which is to reduce the small business tax rate. Can you comment further on why you think that's really sound policy?