Search

Search results

1. How StatsCan wants you to pay taxes till you drop

   That’s not quite fair. Or rather, it’s not at all fair. Statistics Canada’s employees presumably have their own views on whether taxes should be higher or lower. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as government employees, many favoured higher ...

2. The key fiscal lesson of Canada’s first 150 years—spend prudently

   As 2017 draws to a close, Canadians can reflect not only on the outcomes of the last year, but in this milestone 150th year of the federation, also where we are headed. What shall Canada’s economic achievements be as the next 50 years ...

3. The Watson family inequality crisis

   In our family, inequality has reached levels the CBC and Toronto Star would consider outright scandalous. There are four of us in the family and we are now, all of us, tax-filers—even if some of us file mainly to register for various ...

4. Looming U.S. tax changes threaten Canada’s competitiveness

   Besides the negative trade actions taken by the United States against Canada in the form of duties imposed on exports of airplanes and softwood lumber, and the Trump administration’s problematic demands during NAFTA negotiations, ...

5. Changing tax rules for diabetics—another missed opportunity for positive tax reform

   Many Canadians living with type 1 diabetes may see their income tax bill increase as a result of the Trudeau government’s revised interpretation of the Income Tax Act. According to Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier, “advances in ...

6. Professor conflates taxes with transfers—just like the Trudeau government

   In a recent commentary in the Financial Post titled “Misleading the middle class,” Simon Fraser University professor Rhys Kesselman criticized our analysis of how federal tax policy changes have increased the amount of income tax paid by ...

7. Carbon tax advocates flip-flop on revenue neutrality

   For many years, advocates of carbon taxes have acknowledged the necessity of “revenue neutrality” as a means of mitigating the economic damages such tax measures cause to households and the economy. In normal economic parlance, “revenue ...

8. Morneau’s small business tax ‘fix’ won’t fix the problem

   In response to widespread criticism of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s plan to change the tax rules for small businesses, this week the federal government announced a series of “tweaks,” cutting the small business tax rate from 10.5 per ...

9. On balance, a Netflix tax would be better than this

   Comparisons with friends suggest lots of Canadians’ daily TV now involves: some live sports, in our case the Montreal Canadiens, viewed on delay so as to fast-forward through commercials and between periods; some live news, also delayed ...

10. Economists Olewiler and Kesselman get the economics wrong on B.C.’s carbon tax

    In recent Vancouver Sun column, Simon Fraser University economists Nancy Olewiler and Rhys Kesselman dispute an earlier column by three Fraser Institute economists (Kenneth Green, Elmira Aliakbari and Ashley Stedman), which criticized ...