The 2011 federal budget was clearly designed to fail and provoke an election. It only went part way to meet some of the opposition parties’ priorities while also showering the country with dozens of different politically opportunistic relatively minor spending measures, extensions of expiring programs and boutique tax cuts.  Quite appropriately, it became D.O.A.–and now we’ll soon be into an election. What’s concerning […]
Read more(Here’s a piece that will be in the next quarterly Economic Climate for Bargaining publication I produce, also posted on the CUPE website in pdf format.) There’s a widely held myth now accepted by many people—that public spending in Canada has increased steeply and is growing at unaffordable and unsustainable rates. In fact, the opposite is true. The latest figures […]
Read moreBelow is an oped on my new carbon pricing paper that was published today in the Vancouver Sun. Our communications officers have also done a cool animation about carbon pricing in BC, available on the CCPA web page. Look to Europe for Next Phase of BC’s Carbon Tax When it comes to good urban planning, transportation and taking action on […]
Read moreClimate change is upon us – it feels like we see evidence almost daily in the form of extreme weather events, floods, drought, reductions in food supply, and so on. We have a lot of work to do to transform our economy from one still dominated by a resource extraction mindset, where we cut taxes and regulations in the hopes […]
Read moreThis blog has been posted on behalf of Bruce Campbell, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The first version of this piece originally appeared in the blogosphere at the Huffington Post The Irish people go to the polls on February 25. The governing Fianna Fail party — that created the fallen Celtic Tiger economic model and is […]
Read moreThis was posted on the Globe and Mail’s online feature Economy Lab today. My sincere thanks to all the people who have posted on the topic on this site. The Harper government ’s commitment to further reduce the general corporate income tax rate while the nation struggles with budgetary deficits has been championed by – surprise! – the corporate sector. […]
Read moreFinance Canada finally published its 2010 Tax Expenditure report this morning. This annual report provides new estimates for the revenues the federal government loses annually from different tax measures, deductions, credits, and other tax preferences. These tax preferences also affect provincial revenues to the extent that they piggyback on the federal government’s tax base.  The report includes estimates for the […]
Read moreLast weekend, I pointed out that Neil Reynolds had misleadingly presented figures on capital-gains realizations as being capital-gains tax revenues. Tuesday’s Report on Business included the following item: Correction – January 4, 2011 U.S. capital gains tax realizations fell to 3 per cent of gross domestic product in 1987, when the rate was hiked. Incorrect information appeared in a Dec. […]
Read moreNeil Reynolds’ latest Globe column promotes the myth of costless tax cuts by replicating Kurt Hauser’s month-old Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Hauser’s Law†is the notion that American federal tax revenues have consistently been about 19% of GDP since World War II despite significant changes in statutory tax rates. The implication is that higher tax rates simply prompt more tax […]
Read moreThe Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) got some uncritical media attention with their “study” of tax increases for 2011. Their release states that: “Increases in EI and CPP payroll tax thresholds mean that anyone earning more than $44,200 will pay an additional $76, while employers pay an additional $110 in 2011 payroll taxes. Increases in payroll taxes are primarily attributable to […]
Read moreThe December 2010 issue of the quarterly Economic Climate for Bargaining publication that I produce is now on CUPE’s website in both English and French. In each issue I summarize developments and trends for the economy, labour markets, inflation and wages, and also include short pieces of 1-2 pages on related topical issues. In this issue, the focus is very much on pre-budget […]
Read moreDoing Business enjoys the highest circulation of any World Bank publication. It ranks countries based on the favourability of their regulations to business. It is like the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom and the Cato/Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Report, but supported by the World Bank’s credibility and clout. (Notwithstanding corporate Canada’s incessant complaints about regulation, Canada […]
Read moreMemo to Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert: Royalties are not taxes Already “under attack for allegedly being rude and dismissive when he was health minister,â€[1] current Energy Minister Ron Liepert conceded he hadn’t read the Parkland Institute’s new report on vast oilpatch profits but that didn’t stop him from dismissing it: “This is a not unexpected sort of NDP/socialist view […]
Read moreThe term “Austrian economists†usually refers to the likes of Hayek, Menger and von Mises. But I recently met some rather different economists from the Austrian Chamber of Labour. Austrian law requires that union members pay dues to the Chamber of Labour, so it is very well-funded for a progressive think tank. Similarly, all Austrian businesses are members of the […]
Read moreJack Vicq is Saskatchewan’s answer to Jack Mintz, a relentless advocate of lower taxes for high-income individuals and profitable corporations. His first report for the provincial government presaged massive personal income tax cuts in 2000 (which soon pushed the province into deficit). His second report for the provincial government presaged massive corporate tax cuts. Saskatchewan business organizations just released a […]
Read moreThis morning, the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education hosted a Bay Street breakfast meeting with Stockwell Day, President of the Treasury Board of Canada. Jim serves on the Foundation’s Board of Directors, but could not make today’s session. So, Armine and I ended up having breakfast with Tories at Torys. (Some other participants may not have been Tories, but I […]
Read moreBC’s carbon tax was supposed to be “revenue neutral”, meaning all carbon tax revenue would be “recycled” to British Columbians through personal income tax cuts, corporate income tax cuts and a low-income credit. When the 2008 budget launched the carbon tax, we were provided with a forecast that had revenues precisely match recycling through tax cuts and credits, with about […]
Read moreWhenever the stock market falls, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow reliably blames the Obama administration’s allegedly anti-business policies. But when the market was rising on Obama’s watch, Kudlow generally did not talk about it. On tonight’s show, he took a different tack. He repeatedly asserted that the market has recently rallied not only on strong corporate profits, but also because Tim Geithner announced (on […]
Read moreOn a weekend getaway to Washington state, I was alarmed at how much cheaper gas prices are south of the border. Typically, we paid $3 per gallon, whereas the price in Vancouver upon our return was $1.16 per litre, which is $4.39 per gallon (with the exchange rate roughly parity over the weekend). This is an astonishingly large price difference, […]
Read moreToday’s Toronto Star features an op-ed by John Cartwright, President of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. (I once had the chance to hear John speak at a press conference in Toronto and found him to be an oustanding public speaker. But I digress…) In the piece, he argues that “we” (I think he means both the Harper government and the […]
Read moreAs BC and Ontario have now started paying the HST at the till, many people may be wondering when exactly can we expect to see those jobs postings opening up. This is a good question. According to analysis commissioned by the BC government from economist Jack Mintz, titled British Columbia’s Harmonized Sales Tax: A Giant Leap in the province’s Competitiveness, […]
Read moreWith all of the attention focused on the HST implementation on July 1, most people seemed to miss the next increment of that other much-hated tax, BC’s carbon tax. As of July 1, the carbon tax is now $20 per tonne of CO2, or about 4.6 cents on a litre of gasoline. And like any two-year old, this toddling tax […]
Read moreThat the HST will take a bite out of family budgets is clear to everyone. The main question right now is just how big of a bite. Two studies released in BC earlier this week asked this exact question but came to very different conclusions. On Monday, the Fraser Institute released a paper arguing that lower and middle income families […]
Read moreToday the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published analysis and data on the incidence of different US federal taxes by income group. They are a model of summary data and accessibility, with easily downloadable spreadsheet files, that Canada’s federal agencies (whether Revenue Canada, Statscan or the Parliamentary Budget Office) would do well to emulate. The data show the incidence of individual income […]
Read moreArthur Laffer had a boldly titled op-ed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, “Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse.†This piece has been invoked at least once every ten minutes on each subsequent episode of The Kudlow Report. US tax rates will rise in 2011, when the Bush tax cuts expire. Laffer argues that, to avoid these higher tax rates, Americans […]
Read moreA guest post from PEF Steering Committee Marc Lavoie of the University of Ottawa: Tax the very rich and solve the PBO problem Among the dozen or so sessions I attended at the meeting of the Canadian Economics Association last week-end in Quebec City, one was devoted to the forthcoming fiscal crisis and another to income inequality. Kevin Page, the […]
Read moreFor years we have been asking Stephen Gordon to provide the evidence for lower corporate taxes. Like Stephen I like the Nordic model and take away from it that tax mix matters, so funding a large public sector may require more than taxes on “people we do not know†(ie corporations and the rich), so consumption taxes need to part […]
Read moreI’m afraid I can’t find the report on the IMF website but this news story indicates IMF support for the new Australian tax on windfall mining profits. The obvious thought, if it’s good there, why not here? The Advertiser (Australia) May 17, 2010 Monday IMF backs super tax on nation’s big miners BYLINE: BEN BUTLER THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund has […]
Read moreYou know that you are doing something right when the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) starts making up new pejorative terms. Last Friday’s Toronto Sun included the following op-ed on the Taxers (with a capital “T”): Calls for new and higher taxes are coming from the usual tax-hike proponents (AKA Taxers); public sector unions, lobby groups like the Canadian Centre for […]
Read moreAs promised, here’s my fourth post inspired by the recent Fraser Institute report on taxes paid by Canadian families. I can’t stand seeing people fall simple numbers tricks. And while I realize that I don’t have the time to argue with everyone who is wrong on the Internet, I try to make it a point to call attention to questionable […]
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