Please hold

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 6:28 PM - 0 Comments

The Canadian Press notes that the Conservative promise of income splitting for two-parent families will be delayed another year by the government’s retreat from April’s pledge of a balanced budget in 2014-2015.

Other campaign promises that will be similarly delayed: doubling the children’s fitness tax credit, establishing the adult fitness tax credit and doubling the tax free savings account limit.

Election time and hyperbole is in the air

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 6 Comments

Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP

Every now and then the province of Ontario takes leave of its collective senses. Grown men jump at shadows. House cats are conjured into dragons. For a time it seems as if the only thought on anyone’s mind is the length of their own toenails. We call these periods “elections.”

Just now this province of 13 million souls is preoccupied with a vast and far-reaching proposal on the part of the governing Liberals to give every new job that comes up to a foreign worker. You read that right: if the Liberals are re-elected, they will make the province’s unemployed sit at home—I believe the slogan is “Ontarians need not apply”—presumably until the supply of foreign workers is exhausted. Indeed, so determined are the Liberals to see these itinerant labourers take over the province that they are actually paying employers to hire them: $10,000 a job.

Quite why the Liberals should wish to do this is unclear, but I have it on no less authority than the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. The party has been blanketing the province with advertisements to that effect, while its leader, Tim Hudak, hammers the point home at every opportunity.

Continue…

‘Highly discriminatory’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 26 Comments

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro imparts his feelings on the Ontario election campaign.

More than that, however, Mr. Del Mastro says it harkens back to the early 1990s when Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae was Ontario’s NDP premier. He brought in employment equity legislation to encourage the hiring of women and visible minorities. “My opportunities were severely restricted by legislation that was supposed to be creating equality,” Mr. Del Mastro said. “I was in my early 20s and thought how dare they create an entirely discriminatory policy that was going to affect my future.”

As a “young white male” at the time, Mr. Del Mastro said jobs were few and far between as a result. “And here we go again,” he said.

The issue in question—considered here by the Globe—is an Ontario Liberal proposal to create a tax credit for businesses that hire immigrants for jobs in professions such as “accounting, law, engineering and architecture.”

The Commons: Home improvement

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 6:15 PM - 42 Comments

The morning after the night before, Michael Ignatieff went for a stroll down the adhesives aisle of a Rona in suburban Gatineau. A Liberal candidate stood on each side of him. A semi-circle of photographers and cameramen shuffled backwards in front of him as he went.

Turning the corner he happened upon a shower door that caught his interest. Opening the door, he stepped behind the glass and looked out at the cameramen who clicked away happily. Further on he spotted a tub and signalled for his wife to come have a look. After some consideration, both appeared to be impressed with the bath’s craftsmanship and design.

He continued on between the giant shelves of this high-ceilinged retailer. Turning another corner he came upon an assortment of French doors where, coincidentally enough, someone had set up a podium to which was affixed a red Liberal sign. A row of television cameras had been set up in anticipation of his arrival. Continue…

Policy alert

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 6 Comments

Michael Ignatieff promises various initiatives for rural Canada and a tax credit for firefighters.

The Liberals are also pledging to introduce new tax incentives in the form of a $3,000 refundable tax credit for volunteer firefighters. They noted that the majority of volunteer firefighters would not be able to benefit from a non-refundable tax credit proposed by the Conservatives.

The Liberals have also released a video outlining their rural agenda.

The trouble with tax credits

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 3:56 PM - 35 Comments

Kevin Milligan critiques the fitness tax credit proposed by the Conservatives.

Boutique tax credits benefit those who can afford accountants to arrange their financial affairs, and lard our economy with extra burdens of filling in forms and shuffling paper … Those Canadians struggling most with their budgets don’t benefit, since non-refundable credits only help those who pay tax. This is not a trivial concern – more than eight million Canadians filed non-taxable returns in 2009.

Policy alert

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 3:15 PM - 34 Comments

Stephen Harper promises a fitness tax credit. So long as he’s Prime Minister in 2015.

Stephen Harper continued touting his low-tax campaign message Sunday by announcing that a re-elected Conservative government would create a $500 fitness tax credit for adults — but after the budget is balanced by 2015. He also promised to boost the children’s credit from $500 to $1,000, a change also to be enacted once the government gets back to balanced books.

The complicating simplification

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 4:56 PM - 19 Comments

Bill Curry looks at the practice and impact of targeted tax credits.

The Public Transit Tax Credit was one of the most high-profile tax expenditures announced by the Conservatives in 2006. It was originally projected to cost more than $200-million a year, but has so far been coming in under budget at around $130-million a year. Four years in, experts are unable to say whether the program is encouraging new transit users or simply rewarding those who were taking transit anyway.

Michael Roschlau, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association, said it’s a great idea to reward people for taking public transit, but the statistics do not show that the credit produced a spike in ridership. “We have not been able to attribute a direct correlation between the ridership trends and the tax credit,” he said.

Jeff Jedras laments.

A cozy but violent game

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

When Ubisoft set up a studio in Toronto last July, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty stood in front of a giant flat screen TV displaying graphics from Assassin’s Creed II.

The game was developed in Canada by the type of “creative minds” Ontario needs, he said, undaunted that taxpayers would be subsidizing violent games through the new interactive digital media tax credit. But the release of another new game has prompted anger from at least one politician. In Medal of Honor, players can don the persona of a Taliban fighter and shoot American soldiers. “I find it wrong to have anyone, children in particular, playing the role of the Taliban,” said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Continue…

Mark an X if you want a tax break

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 7 Comments

Jeff McIntosh / CP

For democracy to thrive, it perhaps must inspire. And if politicians fail to offer the necessary motivation, maybe money can.

After just 41 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot during the last provincial election, the Alberta Liberals are proposing that each citizen who votes in the next one receive a $50 tax credit. “It’s an attempt to push people to think maybe a little bit outside the box,” says Liberal Leader David Swann. “We’re headed for trouble if more and more people check out of this democracy.”

Continue…

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 14, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 14 Comments

The Alberta Liberals offer a tax credit for voting.

“I’m hearing more and more from Albertans that they have disengaged from politics, that they don’t trust anybody, that the political process stinks in Alberta, that they’re tired of the culture of cronyism that we’ve talked about,” Swann told CBC News. ”I think it’s time to say very clearly where we stand and what we’re trying to do to try and improve the credibility and the consistent messages people receive about their government.”

The full program, a 12-step plan for better government, is here.

Tax breaks aimed at fighting flab

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 13 Comments

Photograph by Waltraud Grubitzsch/ Zuma/ Keystone

Albertans, like most Canadians, keep getting fatter. So in an attempt to reverse rising obesity rates and encourage active lifestyles, the province’s Progressive Conservative government is considering a fitness tax reward.

The incentive is a tax break of up to $500 on fees for things like gym memberships, ski passes and hockey registration. “We saw it pretty clearly with the tax break on home renovations—people jump on the bandwagon,” says Colleen Parsons, director of health and fitness programs at the University of Calgary. “It’s an excellent opportunity for people to engage.” The bill, which was passed in the legislature but hasn’t yet been made into law, comes on the heels of a similar incentive implemented in Nova Scotia in 2009, and is meant to complement the federal government’s children’s fitness tax credit. It’s also supposed to update the province’s 12-year-old active-living policy, which the government and provincial sports organizations say needs retooling.

Today, one-third of adult Albertans are overweight and about 20 per cent are obese. Parsons says one of the main reasons Albertans avoid the gym and activities like skiing is the cost. The incentive has been endorsed by the Fitness Industry Council of Canada, which conducted a study that found the feds could save $2.5 billion in health care costs over 25 years and get up to one million more Canadians physically active with tax breaks. But, says Parsons, the idea is not a panacea for better health. “Will it change the health of Albertans? No. That’s a much larger problem.”

Cindy Ady, Alberta’s minister for tourism, parks and recreation, agrees. She says the tax incentive needs to be part of a larger program aimed at changing the minds of Albertans, and that the government still needs to go through consultations to figure out what works best. “I don’t want little quick fixes,” says Ady. “The tax credit piece is just one component.”

Econowatch

By Jason Kirby - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 4 Comments

Forget what economists have told you about how stimulus programs are supposed to function during a recession. You can learn a lot more from watching a master illusionist at work.

Take America’s US$8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers. Like any stimulus measure meant to jolt the economy out of recession, the tax credit was always more about smoke and mirrors than economic theory. When Washington created the program eight months ago, its aim was to conjure the illusion of stability in the housing market. Until the free fall in house prices could be halted, a broader economic recovery could never take hold. Continue…

Your next minister of finance

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 24, 2009 at 3:53 PM - 5 Comments

Celebrity contractor and owner of many sleeveless shirts, Mike Holmes, makes pitch for government tax credit and upstanding guys like him. To reinforce Holmes’ point, newspaper editors put headline “Go with the pro” above photo of Prime Minister famously struggling with a nail gun.