Advocates of corporate tax cuts like comparing Canada to an unweighted average of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development members. Since the OECD keeps admitting more microscopic economies with very low corporate tax rates, this average keeps falling regardless of whether any country actually lowers its rate. Last year’s admission of Estonia, Israel and Slovenia dragged the OECD average just […]
Read moreThe main objection to my argument about the treasury transfer effect is that American companies do not actually repatriate their Canadian profits and pay US corporate tax on them. As The Globe reported: Jack Mintz, director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, said the unique tax status of U.S. companies is a moot point because […]
Read moreThe fiscal implications of corporate income tax (CIT) cuts are a key issue in the current debate. Federal cabinet ministers and Neil Reynolds have boldly asserted that lower CIT rates will increase CIT revenues. As Andrew and I have pointed out, this claim is implausible and not supported by the government’s own Department of Finance. The following table provides a closer […]
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 moreTo provide a little context for our current national debate on foreign investment, I did a little digging recently in the FDI data. Some of my findings surprised me. Yes, Canada exports slightly more FDI capital than we import (that is, the net investment position in FDI is slightly positive). But most of what we export is in banking; most […]
Read moreOn Thursday, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said “No†to BHP: Do we want to add PotashCorp to that list of once-proud Canadian companies that are now under foreign control? . . . It’s our government’s belief that the people of Saskatchewan deserve nothing less than a potash industry unequivocally managed, operated and marketed for the benefit of Canada and Saskatchewan. […]
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 moreAmong the concerns about the HST that we at the CCPA have raised was the poor timing of the tax change. From my pre-budget piece last September: If British Columbians respond to the HST by reducing their consumer spending, the timing of the HST introduction may actually slow down the economic recovery, which should be getting under way next summer. […]
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 moreOn Tuesday, the Ministry of Finance released “Ontario’s Tax Plan for Jobs and Growth: Technical Paper on How the Tax Changes Affect People.†This study is an attempt to counter the Statistics Canada study released by the NDP a month ago. Until recently, proponents were claiming that the HST will simultaneously deliver huge savings to business, create loads of new […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on the IRPP pensions conference http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2010/05/12/still-more-on-the-pensions-debate/#comments an excellent (albeit highly complex) power point presentation by Michael Wolfson has recently been posted. It can be found in two parts on the IRPP web site at http://www.irpp.org/indexe.htm Wolfson, who now teaches at the University of Ottawa, recently retired from the position of Assistant Chief Statistician at Statistics […]
Read moreThere have been clouds and clouds of smoke generated about the impact of Ontario’s impending introduction of its Harmonized Sales Tax.  Fortunately there is finally now some substance out there in terms of a detailed analysis conducted by Statistics Canada that was recently released by the Ontario NDP. And what is shows is quite surprising. Much of the blame for all the […]
Read moreLast week I attended what turned out to be an excellent pensions conference organized by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). It was a behind closed doors, Chatham House rules event which stops me from blogging too freely, but several of the presentations have now been posted to the IRPP web site. The audience was mainly policy wonks, […]
Read moreI have just returned from Calgary and the pension forum organized by Jack Mintz through the University of Calgary. Mintz was, of course, the author of a recent research report to the federal and provincial finance ministers which concluded that the status quo was basically working well, except for a modest proportion of middle income earners who may not be […]
Read moreThe Ottawa Economics Association (OEA) held a conference today and yesterday evening. The usual suspects were in attendance saying the usual things: Mark Carney spoke about the need for China to understand the risks of the “paradox of thrift” (see my post from earlier today) that will be unleashed by fiscal consolidation. Don Drummond sang from the productivity choir book […]
Read moreOntario Premier Dalton McGuinty has taken a shine to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Over the past month, he and other Liberals have repeatedly cited it. Indeed, McGuinty invoked the CCPA’s name four times in the provincial legislature on February 17. However, he first did so the day before that: Ms. Andrea Horwath: Can the Premier explain why, […]
Read moreThe Alberta government is reversing its modest increase in conventional oil and gas royalties. Albertans will now receive an even smaller fraction of the value of their resources. The saving grace is that the provincial government did not cut royalties on the oil sands, which are projected to provide more revenue than conventional reserves going forward. Corporate executives welcomed Thursday’s […]
Read moreYesterday afternoon, I caught the subway down to Queen’s Park to find out whether the throne speech would shed any light on the provincial government’s privatization plans. As it turned out, the speech included only a couple of lines on Crown corporations. But I ran into blogger extraordinaire Warren Kinsella at the legislature and note that he has reprimanded Tim […]
Read moreSTEERING COMMITTEE OF PROVINCIAL/TERRITORIAL MINISTERS ON PENSION COVERAGE AND RETIREMENT INCOME ADEQUACY OPTIONS FOR INCREASING PENSION COVERAGE AMONG PRIVATE SECTOR WORKERS IN CANADA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This paper released by BC Finance Minister Colin Hansen for the provincial/territorial ministers indicates much more fundamental problems with our pension system than those identified in the Mintz Report and gives serious consideration to the […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on the Mintz report on pensions http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/12/20/the-mintz-report-and-the-pensions-debate/ Statistics Canada have released the major study on income replacement rates in retirement by Yuri Ostrovsky and Grant Schellenberg which was cited at some length by Mintz. http://cansim2.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-win/cnsmcgi.pgm?Lang=E&AS_Abst=11F0019M2009321&ResultTemplate=/Stu-Etu/Anal_RchAbst The study looks at the incomes of retirees in their early 70s in 2006 in relation to their earnings some […]
Read moreA TD-Pembina-Suzuki study released seven weeks ago projected that cutting Canada’s carbon emissions by 20% below 2006 levels, or even 25% below 1990 levels, would only modestly reduce overall Canadian GDP. Last week, Jack Mintz critiqued this study for positing a fixed amount of capital investment in Canada. Under this highly dubious assumption, climate policy only shifts capital around between […]
Read morePublic debate in Ontario tends to frame sales-tax harmonization either as an unjustified “tax grab” or as a needed contribution to the deteriorating provincial budget.  Both views incorrectly assume that the HST will increase government revenues. In fact, the original proposal was more or less revenue neutral. Removing sales tax from business inputs and cutting personal income taxes would have offset […]
Read moreShould we care that the marginal effective tax rate on capital is higher in Prince Edward Island than in Serbia? Of course, this question is a joke. But the C. D. Howe Institute actually did put out a press release (PDF) last week singling out PEI for its allegedly high business taxes compared to an average of 80 countries, among […]
Read moreI missed the Globe and Mail letters on Thursday (because Jack Mintz’s op-ed prompted me to instead read The National Post that day.) Among them was the following letter from Bruce Hyer, the key advocate of not taxing “small business†profits: Yes, there was a vote I read with interest your editorial The Tax-Cutting Left? (Aug. 18) on the New […]
Read moreI recently had the pleasure of serving with Stephen Gordon on a panel about economics and blogging. Over at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, he has been leading a one-man crusade against reducing the eligibility requirement for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits to 360 hours. His stated goal is to provide better protection for unemployed workers and counter-cyclical fiscal policy. It strikes me […]
Read moreObama’s speech to Congress laid out an excellent agenda: substantial investments in renewable electricity, healthcare reform without delay, increased education spending, enforced limits on carbon emissions and the end of Bush tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000. However, there was one bug, which I fear the President may have caught on his recent visit to Canada: “creating tax-free universal […]
Read moreIt has to be the single most successful lobbying effort in a long time. And no one will notice or care. In Budget 2007, the Conservatives did something courageous and which tax experts had long called for : they proposed measures that would have denied firms a tax deduction on money borrowed in Canada, invested it abroad, and used to […]
Read moreWe are now into full blown Budget consultation mode, with MPs of all parties going through a bit more than the usual pretence of listening before the actual Budget is finally put to bed by the government a few days hence. For once, even the Conservative inner circle seem a bit unsure of where to go. Below the closed (charmed) […]
Read moreSupporters of various American wars have sometimes proclaimed, “Freedom isn’t free.” This idiom could also be applied to Tax-Free Savings Accounts, which entail a cost in terms of lost federal and provincial revenues. When Budget 2008 unveiled TFSAs, several writers on this blog pointed out that their initially low fiscal cost would grow exponentially over time. At least one high-profile TFSA […]
Read moreOK, there has been no such call. Yet. But mark my words, this panel will call for tax cuts as the federal government’s fiscal stimulus, and the government will deliver. The Economic Advisory Council is not exactly a representative group. No labour representation, no Aboriginal reps, no one from the social or non-profit sector whatsoever. Thus, the groups most likely […]
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