François Vaillancourt

François Vaillancourt has been a professor in the department of economic sciences at the University of Montreal since 1976. He completed his Ph.D. in economics at Queen's University in 1978. Professor Vaillancourt has been a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto and Australian National University and a research scholar at the Institute for Research in Public Policy (1992-2000) and the CD Howe Institute (2000-2003). Professor Vaillancourt was also the coordinator of research for the MacDonald Commission (1983-1986). He has consulted for a number of international organizations such as the World Bank, OECD, UNDP and national agencies such as Statistics Canada, Finance Canada, and the Seguin Commission. His fields of research include linguistic policies, intergovernmental financial relations, and tax compliance costs. He has published on a wide variety of issues including equalization in federal countries, education, minority language policies, federalism, and taxation. Professor Vaillancourt is widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent scholars on the issue of tax compliance and administrative costs.

Recent Research by François Vaillancourt

— Apr 25, 2019
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Tax Complexity in 2019: Can It be Tamed?

Tax Complexity in 2019: Can It be Tamed? finds that Canadians face a significantly more complicated tax system than existed just a few decades ago. For example, from 1990 and 2018, the text area of the actual Income Tax Act and related regulations increased by 72 per cent, from 974,050 cm² to 1,673,802 cm². The number of pages in the Act increased by two per cent, and page size increased by 69 per cent (from 354 cm² to 598 cm²). Research has shown that a complicated tax system imposes additional compliance costs on businesses and families, and higher administration costs on government.

— Apr 28, 2016
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Measuring Personal Income Tax Complexity in Canada

Measuring Personal Income Tax Complexity in Canada, examines the evolution of Canadian tax legislation, tax guides and tax expenditures in an effort to quantify complexity. For example, the study finds that between between 1981 and 2014, the number of federal personal income tax expenditures (i.e. targeted tax breaks for particular individuals or activities including deductions, exemptions, exclusions, and tax credits) available to Canadians increased from 101 to 128—an increase of 27 per cent.

— Jan 19, 2016
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Effect of Corporate Income and Payroll Taxes on the Wages

While some advocate for increases in corporate taxes as a means to deal with current fiscal challenges, The Effect of Corporate Income and Payroll Taxes on the Wages of Canadian Workers, calculates the monetary impact of such a policy on the average worker. It finds that, after controlling for other factors (such as a worker’s age, education, occupation, and industry), a one per cent increase in the corporate income tax rate reduces the average hourly wage rate of Canadian workers by between 0.15 and 0.24 per cent in the following year.