A parliamentary committee is expected to hold hearings into income trust tax changes the week of Jan. 29.

The committee says the hearings will allow its members to hear from various experts and interest groups on the Conservative government's plans to phase out the tax-free status of income trusts by 2011.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the trusts amounted to tax avoidance on a grand scale and declared that any new trusts would face regular corporate taxes while existing trusts would get a four-year reprieve.

In the days following the announcement, the income trust sector as a whole lost more than $20 billion in stock value.

The sector is welcoming the hearings as a chance to refute some of Flaherty's justifications for the proposed tax changes.

The sector and its investors have said they hope the hearings will kickstart a public "education" campaign that energy trusts have pledged to finance with $10 million.

"There's been a misrepresentation on the part of the government, wishful thinking perhaps on the part of Flaherty that this is just going to simply disappear," said George Kesteven, president of the Canadian Association of Income Funds.

Kesteven said angry Canadian investors have been flooding his e-mail box in recent weeks after opening their financial statements and seeing the fallout caused by Flaherty's bombshell.

The original timing of the Halloween announcement meant October statements opened in November didn't reflect the multibillion-dollar hit, he said.

"There was essentially a four- to-six week delay in reaction and the reaction came in mid-December," Kesteven said.

An investors advocacy group launched last week wants an explanation of how the Conservatives decided to move ahead with the changes.

"The frustration is palpable," said Brent Fullard, president of the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors (CAITI).

Fullard, a former head of equity capital markets at BMO Nesbitt Capital Burns, said of the 11 founding members of the group, eight are investment managers who manage assets for more than one million Canadians.