Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the 2021 federal budget priorities. My name is Kim Moody. I'm a chartered professional accountant and the CEO and director of Canadian Tax Advisory services for Moody's Tax Law and Moody's Private Client.

Human Resources committee  Here's the short story. The short story is that I actually agree with the witness who just finished talking. It should have gone to lower-income seniors. I don't like the shotgun approach. I think it should have been targeted—a rifle shot approach—to seniors who are eligible for the GIS—

Human Resources committee  I'm not reading the prepared notes. That was number one. Number two, I did agree with the Conservative proposal on allowing a special one-time withdrawal from an RRSP. If it's repaid by December 31, 2023, it would be tax free. I also agreed with waiving mandatory RRIF withdrawals and expanding that to 100% as opposed to 25%.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for that. I'll briefly read this. It's just half a page. I'll now turn briefly to benefits for seniors—

Human Resources committee  All right. These recoveries reflect the significant investments in the CRA to audit so-called offshore activities of Canadians. Potential CERB fraud and leakage are significantly comparable. With no upfront integrity checks, and leaving audits and integrity checks to the back end, obviously this will decrease the probability of recovering funds.

Human Resources committee  Okay. Given the above, I have the following suggestions: One, start administering carefully, perhaps using some of the checks and balances that currently exist within the EI system as to whether employees are effectively quitting their jobs if they refuse to come back to work after being temporarily laid off.

Human Resources committee  Thanks very much.

Human Resources committee  Good morning, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear to discuss the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. My name is Kim Moody. I'm a chartered professional accountant and the CEO and director of Canadian tax advisory services for Moodys Tax Law and Moodys Private Client in Calgary, Alberta.

Finance committee  I think generally the answer is yes, but I would like something like that to occur under the simple proposal that I discussed in my opening remarks. In my view, we need a simple solution and we need a speedy solution. What we have right now is a slow solution and a very, very complex solution, being the 75%.

Finance committee  Well, it's creative. I like the thought. There's a lot of thought coming out from people right now. I saw one on allowing people to withdraw money from their RRSPs, for example, and pay it back over time without tax consequences. I think any creative thought like that, and the one you suggested, should be on the table.

Finance committee  I'll start with the first question, with respect to fast changes. I'll put that into what I call trying to find credible sources of information. I've been pretty vocal about this. There's no shortage of changes. Everybody's drinking from a firehose and the changes are coming pretty quickly.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Cumming. I do agree with that. It was in my opening remarks. I actually like quite a lot what the government did on the 10% wage subsidy. That is exactly how cash was put in the hands of small business owners. I think there's something there with respect to the 75% as well.

Finance committee  That's a great question. I spent many, many hours thinking about how a lot of our clients are certainly in that position. I don't have any brilliance on that, unfortunately, but I'll continue thinking about it. Sorry about that.

Finance committee  Thank you. I also don't think the wage subsidy is needed for every employee across all sectors. If an organization only requires support for a few employees, just support what is needed, not the entire organization. Those are what I think are my imperfect solutions. Turning now to the proposed 75% wage subsidy, unfortunately draft legislation is still not available to the public and I would encourage its release ASAP.

Finance committee  Good afternoon, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and specifically as it relates to small and medium-sized businesses. My name is Kim Moody. I'm the CEO of Moodys Tax. I have a long history of serving the Canadian tax profession in a variety of leadership positions.