Category Tax policy
Helmer for the Defense: The Liberals and the CIT
In CIT Cuts: The Waiting Until We Can Afford It Argument I characterise the Liberal position on the corporate income tax as incoherent at best and advocating counter-cyclical tax policy at worst. My very good friend and dodgeball teammate Jesse Helmer has an excellent defense of the Liberal position. In the interest of fairness, I thought you […]
When is a ban a subsidy?
In the United States, surrogate mothers receive fees of about $20,000 to $25,000 for their services. In Canada, the U.K., Australia and a number of other countries, commercial surrogacy is outlawed, but surrogates are compensated for expenses, for example, clothing, food, prenatal vitamins, childcare, travel costs, lost wages, medications, medical bills, etc. In the U.K., reported expenses range […]
Retirement savings plans: brilliant economics, lousy psychology
The US has 401(k)s and IRAs. The UK has personal pension schemes. Canada has Registered Retirement Savings Plans or RRSPs. Economists typically support such plans because of their effects on savings. The plans also make the tax system fairer, granting all taxpayers access to the tax advantages enjoyed by employer pension plans. But the truly brilliant part […]
Popular support for increased inequality?
One part of Canada's tax-transfer system increases inequality of wealth. That's not an unfortunate side-effect of the policy; it is deliberately designed that way. It would be very easy to design it differently so that it did not increase inequality.
“I’m a corporation and so’s my wife.”
"Women are persons in matters of pains and penalties, but are not persons in matters of rights and privileges." Traditional British common law held that women and men were inherently unequal. Today, the equality of men and women is enshrined in the Canadian constitution, and we face a different legal challenge: Corporations are persons in […]
The GST and Lord Voldemort
I can't – and won't – count the times where I've pointed out that increasing the GST is probably the best way of raising revenues to deal with a federal structural deficit whose size is almost exactly equal to the revenues foregone by the 2 points the Conservatives cut from the GST. And I have […]
Some corporate tax talking points I wish people would stop talking about
The issue of corporate taxes is becoming an issue, and it may even be an issue that provokes an election. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the debate has deteriorated even faster than I had feared. Here are five Bad Talking Points that I wish people would stop talking about.
Does the construction industry suffer false consciousness?
According to research carried out by Professor Jack Mintz of University of Calgary, the construction industry stood to gain enormously from Ontario's adoption of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST): In 2009, the business tax structure was heavily biased against investments in construction (42.2%) and services… By 2018, however, Ontario’s business tax structure will be not only […]
Inequality and debt: the soft bigotry of low expectations
"The poor don't have enough income to save, and can't help going into debt to the rich. Debt is caused by inequality". That statement is wrong on many levels. It's wrong theoretically. It's wrong empirically. But most of all, it's wrong because it might make inequality worse. It's the soft bigotry of low expectations. Providence […]
Property taxes the Calgary way
Toronto's new mayor Rob Ford recently promised to freeze property taxes. This type of promise drives me crazy. Property taxes are based on the mill rate times the assessed value of a person's property. So does a pledge to freeze taxes mean the mill rate will be unchanged? If so, property taxes paid will increase […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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