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Fair Tax Measures from Alternative Federal Budget could raise +$70B

25 août 2023 Par Erika Beauchesne

A photo of the Alternative Federal Budget 2023

The federal government is facing urgent spending priorities. Canada must shift rapidly to a post carbon economy while mitigating the disastrous effects of climate change. Policymakers also need to address an uneven pandemic recovery that saw billionaire wealth grow and corporate profits reach record highs while poverty worsened. Rising food prices and the lack of housing is making it hard for families to thrive.

These problems require significant investments to fix. Progressive tax policies are part of the remedy. From taxing extreme wealth to stopping corporate tax avoidance, this year’s Alternative Federal Budget, released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, shows how we can fund these investments while making our tax system fairer:

 

Fair Tax Measure

Estimated New Annual Revenue (2024-25)

Annual net wealth tax 

$28.8 B

Raise the corporate income tax rate from 15% to 20%.

$11 billion

Make corporations with pre-tax profits over $1 billion pay a minimum corporate income tax of at least 15%, and base that on the “book profits” they report to shareholders - not the other story they tell the CRA.

$7 billion

Implement a minimum tax of 25% on foreign profits of Canadian corporations.

$19.3 billion

Tax income from capital gains at 75% instead of only at 50%.

$9.5 billion

Cap corporate pay deductions at $1 million in total compensation for every employee

$500 million

Limit the corporate dividend tax credit to ‘tax already paid’. (This credit gets claimed by shareholders for tax paid by the corporations they own.)

$1 billion

Limit how corporations carry over losses to reduce their taxes by capping the carry-forward period to 10 years for corporate non-capital losses.

$1 billion

Apply a windfall profits tax to large corporations’ profits greater than 120 per cent of pre-pandemic profit margins 

$10 billion

Eliminate the corporate tax exemption for Real-Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

$130 million

Eliminate the First Home Savings Account 

$465 million

Apply carbon tax to large emitters & implement carbon border tax

$3 billion

Properly fund the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) so that it can investigate complex tax avoidance schemes by the wealthy and corporations.

 

Aid charities in navigating regulatory changes

 

End tax agreements with known tax havens

 

Strengthen labour and accountability rules for climate tax credits

 

Prioritize tackling tax avoidance by the wealthy by shifting spending from Budget 2023 on catching low-income CERB recipients to auditing CEWS recipients

 

Require public, country-by-country reporting of corporate financial information

 

Hasten the introduction of automatic tax filing to save Canadians time and help get tax benefits to more Canadians

 

Source:

Rising to the Challenge: 2024 Alternative Federal Budget, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Aug 24, 2023.