Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse
About 240,000 low-income Canadians eligible for millions of dollars in federal support payments aren’t getting the cash, partly because the Canada Revenue Agency paperwork is too complicated.
That’s the tentative conclusion of a Finance Canada review of a vaunted poverty-reduction measure, the Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB), a program that is a decade old this year.
Read more at CBC News
OTTAWA – Liberal backbenchers have been getting an earful this summer from small business owners outraged by the Trudeau government’s proposals to end what it calls “unfair tax advantages.”
And now they’re preparing to unleash the concerns of their constituents – and pressure Finance Minister Bill Morneau to adjust his plans accordingly – during the government’s summer caucus retreat next week in Kelowna, B.C.
Read more at Global News
Among the most insistent critics of the recent proposals by Finance Minister Bill Morneau to tighten up the use of private companies to avoid taxes have been Canada’s doctors.
Canadians generally do not begrudge doctors their above-average incomes. They spend many years training for their jobs, and then sometimes literally hold our lives in their hands. Still, valid questions remain about how much they make and how much tax they pay. Despite some claims, are doctors really in the middle class?
Read more at Maclean’s
Canadians pay a whopping 42.5 per cent of their income in taxes, according to a new report by the Fraser Institute.
An average family with an income of about $83,000 paid roughly $35,000 in taxes last year, the Vancouver, B.C.-based think-tank calculated. That overall tax bill accounts for federal, provincial and local taxes, including income, payroll, sales and property taxes.
By comparison, a typical Canadian household used only 37 per cent of its income on basic necessities, according to the report. Spending on housing (including rent and mortgage payments), food and clothing amounted to $31,000 for the typical family.
Read more at Global News
Conservative leadership candidate Maxime Bernier wants to eliminate some of the boutique tax credits favoured by former prime minister Stephen Harper to help cover the cost of cutting income taxes for a majority of Canadians.
“I prefer to have a tax system that would be fair for everybody,” the Quebec MP said at a news conference Thursday as he unveiled his plan for income tax reform.
“I don’t want the government to choose winners and losers,” he said.
Bernier is promising a more-straightforward income tax plan that would mean anyone who makes between $15,000 and $100,000 a year would be taxed at a rate of 15 per cent.
Anyone who earns below $15,000 a year would not pay any federal income taxes and anyone who makes more than $100,000 would be taxed at 25 per cent.
That would bring the number of income tax brackets down to two from five.
Right now, the current personal exemption is set at $11,474, the lowest tax rate is 15 per cent for earnings up to $45,282 and the highest is 33 per cent for anyone whose annual income exceeds $200,000.
Bernier said his proposed change, inspired by reforms brought in during the 1980s by former Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, would make the tax system fairer, easier to understand and less expensive to manage and enforce.