Category Tax policy
Social blah blah blah
I've been asked to write a paper reviewing "social benefits" delivered through the personal income tax system. I have no idea what this means. In economics, "social benefits" refers to the benefit side of a social benefit/cost calculation; the increase in social welfare associated with a particular project or policy. It has little to do […]
Tax Policy for Canadians with Disabilities: A Reading List
The amount of research on tax policy for Canadians with disabilities is fairly limited. Moreover, a number of key publications (such as the 2004 Brown and Torjman report) are hard to find. Thus, for my own convenience, and that of other researchers, I have created a reading list. Publications on this list are divided into […]
How to lie with NGDP statistics?
I'm not very good at this. But I think we need to ask the question. Others could answer it better than me. Scott Sumner tells me that Greece is considering issuing NGDP-linked bonds, where the amount the government pays to bondholders is proportional to Nominal Gross Domestic Product. Like Scott, I rather like the idea […]
Ontario Finances Not Quite On Target This Year
As Ontario moves into budget season, it is instructive to take a quick look at the finances to date as revealed in the most recent Ontario Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review which was presented November 2014. Ontario’s aim then as no doubt now was to have the budget balanced by 2017-18. According to the Review, […]
How to deliver tax relief for Canadian families
In the 1960s, my mother's monthly family allowance cheque paid for a week's groceries. In 2011, the median Canadian two-parent family had an income of just over $90,000. At that level of net income, a family with two children receives Canada Child Tax Benefit worth $87 per month. That doesn't come close to paying for […]
Tax cuts should deliver equity, or efficiency, or both. Income splitting does neither.
The ideal tax system reflects a compromise between two conflicting goals: equity and efficiency. Equity requires that those who are able to pay more taxes do so. It means taxing the rich and giving to the poor, in thereby reducing inequality and ameliorating poverty. Hence equity demands relatively high marginal tax rates. Efficiency, on the […]
Where is a Kenneth Carter When You Need One?
I would imagine that the name Kenneth Carter is not well known outside of a narrow range of economic specialists and accountants working in the tax or public finance area. Kenneth Carter was appointed in 1962 by a Conservative Prime Minister – John Diefenbaker – to examine and report on the federal tax system. The […]
Another Portent of a Looming Federal Election
It turns out that that Federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver is reported as saying that “the government can shrink the national debt by growing the economy and ‘without actually paying off any debt’.” At the same time, as part of pre–budgetary consultations with the finance committee, the Conference Board of Canada, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation […]
Dumb questions about econometrics and GAI/NIT
I've been meaning to write this post for some time. Scott Sumner's post spurs me to write it now. First let me ask my dumb econometrics question. It's a very simple question, and I really ought to know the answer. But I don't. Q1. If you estimate a linear regression, using Least Squares or whatever, […]
Tax Competition
The Tax Foundation released its 2014 International Tax Competitiveness Index (ITCI) of 34 OECD countries and Canada’s overall rank was 24 out of 34 countries. Despite our recent snagging of Burger King, we are apparently in the bottom third of OECD countries when it comes to tax competitiveness. Interestingly enough, the United States did even […]
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