Finn Poschmann

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

Finn Poschmann is a Senior Fellow with the Fraser Institute focusing on a broad range of issues including taxes, government spending, capital markets, and competitiveness. Before joining the Institute, Mr. Poschmann was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, an independent, non-partisan research and educational organization. Prior to that, Mr. Poschmann spent 17 years working with the C.D. Howe Institute, acting as Vice President of Research and Policy Analysis.

Over his extensive career, Mr. Poschmann has worked in numerous areas within economics, with a focus on public finance and taxation, financial services and housing finance, federal-provincial relations, and competition law and regulatory policy.

Mr. Poschmann is an award-winning writer who has authored or co-authored more than 50 peer reviewed studies, in addition to countless columns for such newspapers as the National Post and The Globe and Mail, as well as academic journal articles. His work has also been cited as a source of inspiration for the Tax-Free Savings Account.

Mr. Poschmann served on the Federal Advisory Panel on Canada’s System of International Taxation, among other panels and task forces. He has provided expert testimony before Parliamentary committees. He received his B.A. in economics from Carleton University.

Recent Research by Finn Poschmann

— Jan 15, 2020
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Fiscal Policy and Recessions: The Role of Public Infrastructure Spending

Fiscal Policy and Recessions: The Role of Public Infrastructure Spending finds that infrastructure spending is not an effective policy for stimulating the economy during a recession because major infrastructure projects have very long timelines, and the recession will be over by the time shovels hit the ground. There is also evidence from the United States and Canada that increased federal spending on infrastructure merely replaces spending from lower levels of government, meaning the level of overall government spending remains the same.

— 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.