The budgets governments present around the beginning of their fiscal year and the financial statements they publish after the fiscal year has ended are critical tools for legislators and voters. To non-experts, the transparency of these documents matters: from them, readers should be able to understand the government’s plans, see how results differed from […]
In Canada, most government cash benefit payments require recipients to file a tax return. Individuals who fail to participate in the tax system, often the most vulnerable in society, may forgo important government benefits (or even entitlements to government services when such services are tied to tax return information). The September 2020 Speech from […]
From: Jon Johnson To: Global Affairs Canada Date: January 24, 2022 Re: Digital Taxes – A USTR Shot Across Canada’s Bow In its fall fiscal update, the federal government confirmed its intention to proceed with the implementation of a 3-percent tax on revenue from certain digital services that it first announced in Budget 2021, and was discussed here. […]
From: Nick Dahir and Alex Laurin To: Canadian Policy Watchers Date: January 14, 2022 Re: The Net Cost of Pandemic Emergency/Recovery Benefits Statistics Canada’s updated version of its Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD/M) integrates all of the extraordinary provincial and federal COVID-related cash benefits delivered in 2020. Giving us, for the first time, […]
From: Drew Yewchuk To: Alberta’s orphan well watchers Date: December 14, 2021 Re: Why Alberta’s Plan for the Unpaid Municipal Taxes of Oil and Gas Companies Won’t Work New Alberta legislation gives municipal governments the power to place liens on pipelines and wells of companies that fail to pay their assessed municipal taxes as part of the province’s struggle […]
From: Guy Legault and Keith Brown To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: December 8, 2021 Re: Four Design Flaws in Ottawa’s Underutilized Housing Tax Last April’s federal budget contained a number of announcements relating to future tax changes. One tax proposal that did not attract much media attention or scrutiny was the government’s plan (originally announced in the 2020 […]
From: Don Drummond To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: December 2, 2021 Re: Upcoming Fall Fiscal Update Must Answer Questions About Growth Strategy Fiscal Updates were created to support a national dialogue on the solutions to challenges without the pressure of immediate policy action as attends a budget. There has never been a greater need for such a […]
From: Jeremy M. Kronick and Alexandre Laurin To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: November 30, 2021 Re: Taxing Big Banks and Insurers – Unlikely to Go the Way Planned Most people understand and agree with the notion that taxation should be progressive – people who earn more should bear a greater burden of funding the services provided by government […]
Automatic GST Cuts Should Be In Ottawa’s Tool Box To Fight Downturns The federal government should consider automatic cuts to the goods and services tax (GST) in downturns as a complementary fiscal policy measure states the report. Authors Robin Boadway and Thorsten Koeppl propose an automatic mechanism that would use temporary cuts in the GST […]
Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments routinely miss their budget projections. Although their projections for both expenses and revenues tend to be lower than what actually happens, the absolute size of misses in either direction also matters for accountability. Voters and legislators can have more confidence in budget projections if measures such as the absolute […]
Canada’s senior governments tend to spend more than they budget. From the 2000/01 fiscal year to 2019/20, only Newfoundland and Labrador spent less, on average, than it budgeted. Over those 20 years, all senior governments together overshot budgeted expenses by a cumulative $119 billion. That means they went into the COVID-19 crisis spending $3,100 more […]
Bottom Line: Canadian Governments’ Budget Overshoots Mean Higher Spending and Taxes Over the course of 20 fiscal years, Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments routinely overshot their annual budget targets, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. Authors William B.P. Robson and Miles Wu find that since 2000/01, Canada’s senior governments have overshot […]
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The budgets governments present around the beginning of their fiscal year and the financial statements they publish after the fiscal year has ended are critical tools for legislators and voters. To non-experts, the transparency of these documents matters: from them, readers should be able to understand the government’s plans, see how results differed from […] 
In Canada, most government cash benefit payments require recipients to file a tax return. Individuals who fail to participate in the tax system, often the most vulnerable in society, may forgo important government benefits (or even entitlements to government services when such services are tied to tax return information). The September 2020 Speech from […] 
From: Jon Johnson To: Global Affairs Canada Date: January 24, 2022 Re: Digital Taxes – A USTR Shot Across Canada’s Bow In its fall fiscal update, the federal government confirmed its intention to proceed with the implementation of a 3-percent tax on revenue from certain digital services that it first announced in Budget 2021, and was discussed here. […] 
From: Nick Dahir and Alex Laurin To: Canadian Policy Watchers Date: January 14, 2022 Re: The Net Cost of Pandemic Emergency/Recovery Benefits Statistics Canada’s updated version of its Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD/M) integrates all of the extraordinary provincial and federal COVID-related cash benefits delivered in 2020. Giving us, for the first time, […] 
From: Drew Yewchuk To: Alberta’s orphan well watchers Date: December 14, 2021 Re: Why Alberta’s Plan for the Unpaid Municipal Taxes of Oil and Gas Companies Won’t Work New Alberta legislation gives municipal governments the power to place liens on pipelines and wells of companies that fail to pay their assessed municipal taxes as part of the province’s struggle […] 
From: Guy Legault and Keith Brown To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: December 8, 2021 Re: Four Design Flaws in Ottawa’s Underutilized Housing Tax Last April’s federal budget contained a number of announcements relating to future tax changes. One tax proposal that did not attract much media attention or scrutiny was the government’s plan (originally announced in the 2020 […] 
From: Don Drummond To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: December 2, 2021 Re: Upcoming Fall Fiscal Update Must Answer Questions About Growth Strategy Fiscal Updates were created to support a national dialogue on the solutions to challenges without the pressure of immediate policy action as attends a budget. There has never been a greater need for such a […] 
From: Jeremy M. Kronick and Alexandre Laurin To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: November 30, 2021 Re: Taxing Big Banks and Insurers – Unlikely to Go the Way Planned Most people understand and agree with the notion that taxation should be progressive – people who earn more should bear a greater burden of funding the services provided by government […] 
Automatic GST Cuts Should Be In Ottawa’s Tool Box To Fight Downturns The federal government should consider automatic cuts to the goods and services tax (GST) in downturns as a complementary fiscal policy measure states the report. Authors Robin Boadway and Thorsten Koeppl propose an automatic mechanism that would use temporary cuts in the GST […] 
Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments routinely miss their budget projections. Although their projections for both expenses and revenues tend to be lower than what actually happens, the absolute size of misses in either direction also matters for accountability. Voters and legislators can have more confidence in budget projections if measures such as the absolute […] 
Canada’s senior governments tend to spend more than they budget. From the 2000/01 fiscal year to 2019/20, only Newfoundland and Labrador spent less, on average, than it budgeted. Over those 20 years, all senior governments together overshot budgeted expenses by a cumulative $119 billion. That means they went into the COVID-19 crisis spending $3,100 more […] 
Bottom Line: Canadian Governments’ Budget Overshoots Mean Higher Spending and Taxes Over the course of 20 fiscal years, Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments routinely overshot their annual budget targets, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. Authors William B.P. Robson and Miles Wu find that since 2000/01, Canada’s senior governments have overshot […]