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William Watson, "From the editor's desktop" Sorry, an abstract of this article is not available. Thomas A. Wilson, Peter Dungan, and Steven Murphy, "What room for tax cuts?" With the federal surplus fixed at $6- 10 billion, the room for tax cuts grows steadily, reaching three per cent of GDP, more than $40 billion, in 2010. There is room for cuts even if an average-sized recession hits next year. In the short term, the fiscal dividend isn't large, but if it is to be used wisely we should start planning now. Jonathan Kesselman, "Tax cuts for growth and fairness" We should reduce high marginal rates of income tax and shift the overall tax burden away from capital income onto labour and consumption. Like several European countries with bigger public sectors but also higher productivity growth, we should hike the GST rate, tax luxury purchases, raise income tax thresholds, reduce capital gains taxes, extend RRSP room, and end tax breaks for favoured activities. James B. Davies, "Reform the personal income tax" The federal government should use the fiscal dividend to make the tax system simpler, fairer and more encouraging of economic efficiency. It should bring back full indexation, eliminate surtaxes, reduce rates, gradually increase credits and thresholds, give every family a credit or deduction for children, and study a flat-tax package that would abolish clawbacks and spread the burden of payroll taxes more widely. G. C. Ruggeri and Carole Vincent, "Can we unburden the personal income tax?" The federal personal income tax should go back to doing what it was originally meant to do: raising a desired amount of revenue in a simple and efficient manner. Canadians would be better off if we eliminated most tax breaks and used the resulting revenue gain for substantial reductions in tax rates. Nancy Olewiler, "Let's use benefit taxes more" Canada finances only about 40 per cent of its overall public spending with user charges and other benefit taxes. It being unlikely that the economic spillovers from spending are as high as 60 per cent, we should use benefit taxes more. Areas where they would be especially helpful are traffic congestion, water supply, pollution abatement and even education and health care. Kenneth J. McKenzie, "A tax system for a global economy" Capital and skilled labour are more and more mobile and therefore less and less likely to stay put and pay any taxes levied on them. Indexing the personal tax system and raising the threshold at which high marginal tax rates kick in would therefore eventually benefit immobile economic actors, such as low-skilled labour, by making them more productive. Peter McQuillan, "We need a simpler corporate tax, levied at a lower rate" We need to lower the corporate tax rate and simplify the system. Provinces whose rate diverges from the national average should be penalized. Revenue losses should be made up by: ending the $500,000 capital gains exemption on the sale of a business, taxing all capital gains as income, and ending 'double- dipping' on the deduction of interest. Alice O. Nakamura and W. Erwin Diewert, "Roll back the EI payroll tax" Recent changes to Employment Insurance have effectively introduced a uniquely Canadian form of worker- side experience rating. Though this has reduced the program's caseload and cost, workers have not yet benefited from these savings in the way that was intended. If they don't soon, support for the reforms will - and should - erode. France St-Hilaire, "A new federal-provincial equilibrium" Cutbacks in federal transfers have destabilized Canada's federal- provincial fiscal system. The relative buoyancy of federal revenues is pushing Ottawa into provincial jurisdictions. A new fiscal contract would have the feds give up tax points that the provinces would then use to build up a new social union fund, its use to be determined in the social union negotiations. Richard Bird, "How the rapporteur saw things" International comparisons are always difficult and international tax effects may not be quite as important as people say. The effect of federal actions on provincial revenues needs to be taken very seriously. Are consumption taxes really OK? Maybe we shouldn't spend the surplus but instead pay down the debt more. Tax reform is always a dangerous and difficult political game. |
