In my January 8, 2013 post ("My Name is Cliff, Drop Over
Some Time"), I criticized parliamentarians for passing most
tax legislation without much, if anything, in the way of informed
debate. As a consequence, there is a lot of pressure on the
Department of Finance (the group primarily responsible for drafting
tax legislation) to "get it right" the first time. And,
as we know, it doesn't always manage to do so, and we have to
amend (and re amend) the original version to correct the initial
mistakes. Input from outside experts could help here, but in Canada
we lack an institutionalized approach to involving private sector
experts in the tax legislative process. There used to be an
informal executive interchange program that served this purpose,
but I don't hear much of it these days.
