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The Problem of Corporate Tax Rate Hikes

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Why it’s nearly impossible to avoid causing more harm than good

Are Canadian corporations paying their share? Well, what is their share? And before we go there, just how much are Canadian corporations paying?

According to Statistics Canada, in the second quarter of 2024 the federal government received $221 billion from all income tax revenues (excluding CPP and QPP). Provincial governments took in another $104 billion, and local (municipal) governments got $21 billion. Using those numbers, we can (loosely) estimate that all levels of government raise somewhere around $1.38 trillion annually.

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If you’re curious (and I know you are), that means taxes cost each man, woman, and child in Canada $33,782 each year. Trust me: I feel your pain.

Based on Statistics Canada data from 2022 (the latest comparable data available), we can also say that roughly ten percent of those total revenues come from corporate taxes at both the federal and provincial levels.

Keep that 10:90 corporate-to-personal tax revenue ratio in mind. Because what if raising the corporate tax rate by, say, five percent ends up driving businesses to lay off even one percent of workers? Sure, you’ll take in an extra $7 billion in corporate taxes, but you might well lose the $12 billion in personal income taxes those laid-off workers would have paid.

How Much Should Corporations Pay?

Ok. So how should we calculate a business’s fair share? Arguably, a single dollar’s worth of business activity is actually taxed over and over again:

  • When a corporation earns revenue, it’s taxed on its profits.
  • Any remaining profit may be distributed to shareholders in the form of dividends. Shareholders, of course, will pay income tax on those dividends.
  • Corporations pass on part of the tax burden to consumers through higher prices. When consumers pay those higher prices, a part of every dollar they spend is indirectly taxed through the corporation’s price adjustments.
  • Employee wages paid from after-tax corporate profits are taxed yet again.
  • Shareholders may eventually realize capital gains when they sell their shares. These gains are, naturally, also taxed.

I guess the ideal system would identify a corporate tax rate that takes all those layers into account to ensure that no single individual’s labor and contribution should carry an unreasonable burden. I’ll leave figuring out how to build such a system to smart people.

Does “Soaking Rich Corporations” Actually Work?

Do higher corporate taxes actually improve the lives of Canadians? Spoiler alert: it’s complicated.

Government policy choices generally come with consequences. From time to time, those will include actual solutions for serious problems. But they usually leave their mark in places of which lawmakers were initially barely aware existed.

Here’s where we get to explore some of those unintended consequences by comparing economic performance between provinces with varying corporate tax rates. Do higher rates discourage business investment leading to lower employment, economic activity, and incoming tax revenues? In other words, do tax rate increases always make financial sense?

To answer those questions, I compared each province’s large business tax rate with four economic measures:

Using four measures rather than just one or two gives us many more data points which reduces the likelihood that we’re looking at random statistical relationships. Here are the current provincial corporate tax rates for large businesses:

If we find a significant negative correlation between, say, higher tax rates and outcomes for all four of those measures, then we’d have evidence that higher rates are likely to have a negative impact on the economy (and on the human beings who live within that economy). If, on the other hand, there’s a positive correlation, then it’s possible higher taxes are not harmful.

When I ran the numbers, I found that the GDP per capita has a strong negative correlation with higher tax rates (meaning, the higher the tax rate, the lower the GDP). GFCF per capita and the private sector employment rate both had moderately negative correlations with higher taxes, and my own composite economic index had a weak negative correlation. Those results, taken together, strongly suggest that higher corporate tax rates are indeed harmful for a province’s overall economic health.

Here’s a scatter plot that illustrates the relationship between tax rates and the combined outcome scores:

Alberta, with the lowest tax rate also has the best outcomes. PEI, along with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, share the high-tax-poor-outcome corner.

I guess the bottom line coming out of all this is that the “rich corporations aren’t paying their share” claim isn’t at all simple. To be taken seriously, you’d need to account for:

  • The true second-order costs that higher corporate taxes can impose on consumers, investors, and workers.
  • The strong possibility that higher corporate taxes might cause more harm to economies than they’re worth.
  • The strong possibility that extra revenues might just end up being dumped into the general pool of toxic government waste.

Or, in other words, smart policy choices require good data.

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2025 Federal Election

Alcohol tax and MP pay hike tomorrow (April 1)

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By Franco Terrazzano

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on all party leaders to stop a pair of bad policies that are scheduled to happen automatically on April 1: pay raises for members Parliament and another alcohol tax increase.

“Party leaders owe taxpayers answers to these two questions: Why do you think you deserve a pay raise and why should Canadians pay higher taxes on beer and wine?” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Politicians don’t deserve a raise while millions of Canadians are struggling.

“And the last thing Canadians need is another tax hike when they pour a cold one or uncork a bottle with that special someone.”

MPs give themselves pay raises each year on April 1, based on the average annual increase in union contracts with corporations with 500 or more employees.

The CTF estimates tomorrow’s pay raise will amount to an extra $6,200 for backbench MPs, $9,200 for ministers and $12,400 for the prime minister, based on contract data published by the federal government.

After tomorrow’s pay raise, backbench MPs will receive a $209,300 annual salary, according to CTF estimates. A minister will collect $309,100 and the prime minister will take home $418,600.

Meanwhile, the alcohol escalator automatically increases excise taxes on beer, wine and spirits every year on April 1, without a vote in Parliament. Alcohol taxes will increase by two per cent tomorrow, costing taxpayers about $40 million this year, according to Beer Canada estimates.

The alcohol escalator tax has cost taxpayers more than $900 million since it was imposed in 2017, according to Beer Canada estimates.

“Politicians are padding their pockets on the same day they’re raising beer taxes and that’s wrong,” Terrazzano said. “If party leaders want to prove they care about taxpayers, they should stop the MP pay raises.

“And if party leaders care about giving Canadian brewers, distillers and wineries a fighting chance against tariffs, it’s time to stop hitting them with alcohol tax hikes year after year.”

The CTF released Leger polling showing 79 per cent of Canadians oppose tomorrow’s MP pay raise.

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2025 Federal Election

Poilievre To Create ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor

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From Conservative Party Communications

Poilievre will create the ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor to rapidly approve & build the infrastructure we need to end our energy dependence on America so we can stand up to Trump from a position of strength.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced today he will create a ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor to fast-track approvals for transmission lines, railways, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure across Canada in a pre-approved transport corridor entirely within Canada, transporting our resources within Canada and to the world while bypassing the United States. It will bring billions of dollars of new investment into Canada’s economy, create powerful paycheques for Canadian workers, and restore our economic independence.

“After the Lost Liberal decade, Canada is poorer, weaker, and more dependent on the United States than ever before,” said Poilievre. “My ‘Canada First National Energy Corridor’ will enable us to quickly build the infrastructure we need to strengthen our country so we can stand on our own two feet and stand up to the Americans.”

In the corridor, all levels of government will provide legally binding commitments to approve projects. This means investors will no longer face the endless regulatory limbo that has made Canadians poorer.  First Nations will be involved from the outset, ensuring that economic benefits flow directly to them and that their approval is secured before any money is spent.

Between 2015 and 2020, Canada cancelled 16 major energy projects, resulting in a $176 billion hit to our economy. The Liberals killed the Energy East pipeline and passed Bill C-69, the “No-New-Pipelines” law, which makes it all but impossible to build the pipelines and energy infrastructure we need to strengthen the Canadian economy. And now, the PBO projects that the ‘Carney cap’ on Canadian energy will reduce oil and gas production by nearly 5%, slash GDP by $20.5 billion annually, and eliminate 54,400 full-time jobs by 2032. An average mine opening lead time is now nearly 18 years—23% longer than Australia and 38% longer than the US. As a result of the Lost Liberal Decade, Canada now ranks 23rd in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index for 2024, a seven-place drop since 2015.

“In 2024, Canada exported 98% of its crude oil to the United States. This leaves us too dependent on the Americans,” said Poilievre. “Our Canada First National Energy Corridor will get us out from under America’s thumb and enable us to build the infrastructure we need to sell our natural resources to new markets, bring home jobs and dollars, and make us sovereign and self-reliant to stand up to Trump from a position of strength.”

Mark Carney’s economic advice to Justin Trudeau made Canada weaker while he and his rich friends made out like bandits. While he advised Trudeau to cancel Canadian energy projects, his own company spent billions on pipelines in South America and the Middle East. And unlike our competitors Australia and America, which work with builders to get projects approved, Mark Carney and Steven Guilbeault’s radical “keep-it-in-the-ground” ideology has blocked development, killed jobs, and left Canada dependent on foreign imports.

“The choice is clear: a fourth Liberal term that will keep our resources in the ground and keep us weak and vulnerable to Trump’s threats, or a strong new Conservative government that will approve projects, build an economic fortress, bring jobs and dollars home, and put Canada First—For a Change.”

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