You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
The banners on the left side and below do not show for registered users!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
The NDP platform is out, and judging by all the promises taxes will be going up, corporate taxes specifically. We only need to look slightly south for an example of what happens when corporate taxes are increased. Illinois state increased taxes while neighboring states lowered corporate taxes - I'll let you guess what businesses have decided to do. Its actually gotten so bad that corporations in Illinois get phone calls from the Governor offices of other states to encourage them to move to a tax advantages state.
Thus it is nice that Layton thinks he can increase taxes and create jobs, yet reality says otherwise.
Then there is his cuts to small business tax and incentives to hire. No small business is going to hire permanently just cause a few month's salary is paid for via a tax credit. They need to be doing more business to hire more people - which just isn't happening right now. Look around Vancouver at the number of empty commercial buildings.
Actually, as someone in charge of hiring and firing for a small business, yes. Yes they will. But more importantly it might mean the difference between more layoffs this year and not having to lay anyone off.
I don't think most people understand the two business tax rates and how that works. Our General Business Tax rate has come down multiple times over the last several years and are already the lowest in North America. They do their job already to attract businesses and don't need further reduction. This is like saying 'lets give the rich people who already heavily utilize many write offs and tax shelters more tax breaks and charge the little guys instead'.
Small Business taxes on the other hand haven't gone down at the same rate as the General rate has fallen, furthermore this is the area that has been hardest hit by the current economic climate and is where the jobs loss we have seen actually increasing in the last couple of months is coming from.
The Economists that I've been reading actually (and I thought hell froze over) applauded the fact that Layton's been very up front about his plans as to where we need to increase money coming in (CPP and the General Business Taxes) and where the decreases are most needed.
I'm not an NDP supporter by any stretch, but I'll give them credit where it's due, this is a more realistic plan then the Cons are presenting.
Advertisement
__________________
~ Just another noob looking for a clue
Actually, as someone in charge of hiring and firing for a small business, yes. Yes they will. But more importantly it might mean the difference between more layoffs this year and not having to lay anyone off.
Please tell me how a tax credit for hiring will prevent layoffs? or why a company considering layoffs would hire for a tax credit?
My parents have run small businesses since I was 8yo, I've seen the ins and outs. They have hired when there have been tax reasons to do so, yet the hiring was rarely permanent.
I do agree on the rest. Small business actually creates the most jobs, big business tends to lose jobs over time. Thus any platform that targets small business will be the leading generator of job growth.
Yet the corporate tax cuts aren't to entice existing corporations hire more, its to entice corporations to move here, or not leave here. When a corporation leaves, the jobs are gone for a very long time. Ontario manufacturing is the best example, those jobs are gone, possibly for good due to bad Ontario taxation policies at the provincial level.
So I agree with both the Cons and the NDP, less business taxation. Afterall, it is the end consumer that pays 100% of all taxes, as business just wraps any taxation into the final price. Thus tax the consumer directly, not the business, and remove layers of administration, waste and red tape.
Tories misinformed Parliament on G8 fund, may have broken law: auditor general
Quote:
Among the questionable projects funded were:
— $274,000 on public toilets 20 km from the summit site.
— $100,000 on a gazebo an hour's drive away.
— $1.1 million for sidewalk and tree upgrades 100 km away.
— $194,000 for a park 100 km away.
— $745,000 on downtown improvements for three towns nearly 70 km away.
Please tell me how a tax credit for hiring will prevent layoffs? or why a company considering layoffs would hire for a tax credit?
My parents have run small businesses since I was 8yo, I've seen the ins and outs. They have hired when there have been tax reasons to do so, yet the hiring was rarely permanent.
I do agree on the rest. Small business actually creates the most jobs, big business tends to lose jobs over time. Thus any platform that targets small business will be the leading generator of job growth.
Yet the corporate tax cuts aren't to entice existing corporations hire more, its to entice corporations to move here, or not leave here. When a corporation leaves, the jobs are gone for a very long time. Ontario manufacturing is the best example, those jobs are gone, possibly for good due to bad Ontario taxation policies at the provincial level.
So I agree with both the Cons and the NDP, less business taxation. Afterall, it is the end consumer that pays 100% of all taxes, as business just wraps any taxation into the final price. Thus tax the consumer directly, not the business, and remove layers of administration, waste and red tape.
I do agree with you on consumer base taxes (hence, I'm pro HST).
but personally, I think corporate taxes (not small business) need to be increase, that's right, increase.
Here are my reaons:
Corporations are just hording cash (T-bills treasuries etc), and doing so in an ever increasing amount. The extra tax savings are not going to what the tax cuts are intended to do and thats to create more jobs, increase production, investment on new technologies that increase productivity.
Many corporations just find ways to reduce their main cost, which is LABOUR. The shareholders and Board wants executives to increase profits, and the best way of doing that is to reduce staffing costs, since employees are generally the largest costs to an organization.
When you say the point of tax cuts is to prevent companies from shipping overseas to China or the states etc. Many of these companies are shipping because there is a competitive advantage there that BC/CANADA can not compete with. We can't compete with cheap textile china companies or manufacturing of certain goods. Ontario should not have manufacturing in industries that they do not have a competitive advantage, you can't compete with cheap labour and inputs, no matter how low the taxes are.
Now I'm not saying we should be dramatically increasing the corporate tax rates, I'm just saying that it should be slightly higher than what it currently is, given that we are at one of the lowest rates of all developed countries ( I believe Britain recently moved to lowest).
All I know is the gap between the rich and poor is ever increasing, and that can't be good for all of us.
Corporate tax cuts fail to boost jobs: study
CommentsTwitterLinkedInEmail.Mike Barber, Postmedia News · Apr. 6, 2011 | Last Updated: Apr. 6, 2011 8:24 AM ET
A decade’s worth of corporate tax cuts have padded the bottom lines of Canada’s largest corporations, but those same companies have created jobs at a somewhat slower rate than the economy as a whole, according to the results of a study released Wednesday.
The study, produced by the Ottawa-based think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, concluded that 198 of Canada’s largest publicly traded corporations made 52% more in profit in 2009 than in 2000 while paying 20% less in taxes. Between 2005 and 2009, when employment in Canada grew by 6% despite a global recession, the largest companies created 5% more jobs.
“Despite their growing profits and massive tax savings, the number of jobs created by Canada’s largest corporations was lower than the average employment growth across all sectors of the economy,” said David Macdonald, the study’s author and a researcher with CCPA. “In essence, the largest beneficiaries of corporate tax cuts are dragging down Canadian employment growth.”
The federal corporate tax rate, which applies to companies’ profits and not gross revenue like personal income tax, has been trimmed by successive Liberal and Conservative governments from 29% in 2000 to 19% in 2009, the years reviewed in the study. Provincial tax rates, which vary between 10% and 16%, have also trended downward since 2000.
Legislation passed by the Conservative government would have the rate bottom out at 15% in 2012, a move that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has pledged to reverse should his party form the next government.
Mr. Macdonald wrote that had the rate stayed the same between 2000-09, federal and provincial coffers would have had $12-billion more at their disposal in the 2009 budget.
“As deficit pressures put both federal and provincial government spending under increased scrutiny, it’s hard to find so expensive a program with so few tangible benefits as corporate tax cuts,” said Mr. Macdonald, adding that investing in infrastructure projects and social programs is better suited to immediate job growth.
Jack Mintz, director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, said the gains of an “internationally competitive” corporate tax rate don’t necessarily translate into increased employment overnight, but they do position Canadian companies for long-term growth and attract foreign investment, both of which foster sustained job creation.
“To me, it’s a slam dunk in terms of good policy,” said Mr. Mintz, who co-authored a study earlier this year that concluded the three-point reduction passed by the Conservative government would yield 100,000 more jobs in seven years’ time and $50-billion more in capital investments.
“When you raise the effective tax rate on capital, you are going to squeeze out some projects that [these corporations] have planned, and we will lose those,” said Mr. Mintz.
The combined federal-provincial marginal corporate tax rate, which in 2010 was 29%, was four points higher than the OECD average of 25%. “Certainly, where we’re going is within the bounds of an internationally competitive rate,” said Mr. Mintz, adding that going any lower — as Ireland did in the 1990s in a bid to stimulate job growth which led to systemic deficits — isn’t in the country’s best interest, either.
Mr. Mintz cautioned against judging the rate cuts’ immediate effect on employment given the global economic turbulence of the past few years.
“We have to remember we went through a very bad recession, and companies weren’t going to invest when they weren’t sure there was going to be any demand,” said Mr. Mintz. “There’s a lag. Capital does take time to adjust.”
You forget that Canada has the population of a US state, and that we live in a global world.
If the only reason companies are staying here is our tax rate our country is . Lowering tax rates is just a race to the bottom. One place lowers its rates another place to compete lowers there's even further. It goes back and forth until the tax rate is zero and then we are going have to start paying companies to stay here. We have to provide something more than lower tax rates to to keep and attract companies here.
__________________ Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
Please tell me how a tax credit for hiring will prevent layoffs? or why a company considering layoffs would hire for a tax credit?
My parents have run small businesses since I was 8yo, I've seen the ins and outs. They have hired when there have been tax reasons to do so, yet the hiring was rarely permanent.
I do agree on the rest. Small business actually creates the most jobs, big business tends to lose jobs over time. Thus any platform that targets small business will be the leading generator of job growth.
Yet the corporate tax cuts aren't to entice existing corporations hire more, its to entice corporations to move here, or not leave here. When a corporation leaves, the jobs are gone for a very long time. Ontario manufacturing is the best example, those jobs are gone, possibly for good due to bad Ontario taxation policies at the provincial level.
So I agree with both the Cons and the NDP, less business taxation. Afterall, it is the end consumer that pays 100% of all taxes, as business just wraps any taxation into the final price. Thus tax the consumer directly, not the business, and remove layers of administration, waste and red tape.
I think your definition of what a 'small business' is is a lot smaller then it is in reality. To get the Small Business tax rate, we're talking about companies that make less than 3 million / year.
That's not that small. If my business does just under that in business a year, a 2% cut in the Small Business Tax rate saves nearly 60,000 a year which is one or two full time jobs that are protected if they're not made.
A lot of people see 'small business' and think one or two person shows out of a home office, but that's not the case. Those companies that fall into that category are a great deal larger and many of them have MANY employees. Many are francises of companies so you might mistake them for big business (Tim Hortons, Telus and McDonalds come to mind quickly), or they're private and highly specialized retail places. Many of the places that you all deal with for your car stuff probably fall in this category as well or any other place where there's labor intensive work that's not managed by a large corp.
Adds note:
azndude69> I would agree, I think the general rate needs to go up. The large corps have WAY too many tax shelters and while they theoretically pay 12% taxes, they in reality pay WAY WAY less then that.
__________________
~ Just another noob looking for a clue
If the only reason companies are staying here is our tax rate our country is . Lowering tax rates is just a race to the bottom. One place lowers its rates another place to compete lowers there's even further. It goes back and forth until the tax rate is zero and then we are going have to start paying companies to stay here. We have to provide something more than lower tax rates to to keep and attract companies here.
In the global economy it is a competition, look at how much tourism Vancouver has lost to Seattle in recent years as its cheaper to do business there. Look at how much film industry has come back to BC after being enticed south by our strong dollar, or to Ontario for tax incentives.
If you don't compete, then you cannot win.
As for providing more: what pray tell would you suggest our economy provide? we have low productivity and high costs of living. Tax incentives are the best means for us to compete.
I think your definition of what a 'small business' is is a lot smaller then it is in reality. To get the Small Business tax rate, we're talking about companies that make less than 3 million / year.
I keep referencing the employee tax credit, you keep referencing the business tax decrease. That's the issue.
Small business is 0-100 employees. That's small enough that no tax credit is going to encourage hiring. A tax cut may help, yet if you notice the many empty commercial spaces you'll realize that even a tax cut isn't the answer - the economy needs to improve.
The economy will only improve when people have more $$$ in their pockets to spend - and this means less wasted by government since we're not going to inflate our way out of this mess.
Ah I don't think the hiring tax credit is worth while. Small business needs the $$ but they don't get it. It's only another tax shelter for larger businesses.
I totally agree with you that economic stimulus is what we need most right now.
__________________
~ Just another noob looking for a clue
Corporations are just hording cash (T-bills treasuries etc), and doing so in an ever increasing amount. The extra tax savings are not going to what the tax cuts are intended to do and thats to create more jobs, increase production, investment on new technologies that increase productivity.
You have to look at why corporations are hoarding cash - its no different than why many of my investments are in cash currently. The financial markets basically suck right now, the risk isn't worth the reward, so many are sitting on the fence waiting.
The biggest problem with corporate taxes are the loopholes that allow them to go to zero. Close the loopholes, institute a flat tax.
Quote:
Originally Posted by azndude69
When you say the point of tax cuts is to prevent companies from shipping overseas to China or the states etc. Many of these companies are shipping because there is a competitive advantage there that BC/CANADA can not compete with. We can't compete with cheap textile china companies or manufacturing of certain goods. Ontario should not have manufacturing in industries that they do not have a competitive advantage, you can't compete with cheap labour and inputs, no matter how low the taxes are.
As I pointed out in a post above we're uncompetitive right now, low productivity and high costs, so tax incentives are the best way for us to compete. Tax incentives allow us to compete financially, and allow companies to spend $$$ to become competitive (new equipment, more employees, ...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by azndude69
All I know is the gap between the rich and poor is ever increasing, and that can't be good for all of us.
I agree on this. Its loopholes that cause this. Warren Buffet has said this before, that his effective tax rate is less than his secretary's.
I totally agree with you that economic stimulus is what we need most right now.
As long as that stimulus comes from freeing up wasted $$$. Borrowing against our future doesn't work unless we can inflate our way out of it, which doesn't seem likely since our main trading partner has been in the dumps for 5 years with no end in site, and Chinese growth is slowing down.
As long as that stimulus comes from freeing up wasted $$$. Borrowing against our future doesn't work unless we can inflate our way out of it, which doesn't seem likely since our main trading partner has been in the dumps for 5 years with no end in site, and Chinese growth is slowing down.
I agree.
And I believe that increasing the General Corp tax rate IS a good way to generate that money. Because it DOES have to come from some where.
__________________
~ Just another noob looking for a clue
The Conservatives' report, presented as a dissenting opinion to the Commons the morning Parliament was dissolved last month, quotes Fraser giving high marks to the Harper government for prudent spending on the summits.
The report quoted the auditor general as saying: “We found that the processes and controls around that were very good, and that the monies were spent as they were intended to be spent.”
But in her letter addressed to members of a Commons committee on Friday, which was received by the clerk and members on Monday, Fraser said the quote had nothing to do with the summits.
Instead, she said, the Conservatives recycled an old comment she made on security spending by a previous Liberal government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks a decade ago.
“The comments attributed to me in the [Conservative] report are completely unrelated to G8/G20 spending,” Fraser writes in her letter.
“I would appreciate it if the report could be modified as it is clearly erroneous.”
result
Among the questionable projects funded were:
— $274,000 on public toilets 20 km from the summit site.
— $100,000 on a gazebo an hour's drive away.
— $1.1 million for sidewalk and tree upgrades 100 km away.
— $194,000 for a park 100 km away.
— $745,000 on downtown improvements for three towns nearly 70 km away.
"This is not me telling you this. This is the Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, a respected public servant."
A quote from Fraser:
Quote:
"I strongly caution the public to wait until our final report on the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund has been tabled in Parliament and made public," Fraser said. "Sometimes during the process of fact validation, additional information is brought to our attention."
If you cannot read between the lines, she's not taking credit for the leaked report, meanwhile the Liberals are already jumping on it... makes you wonder who leaked it, and if its actually real.
For those who care, they may wish to consider that, especially since the strong caution from from the AG herself. Remember, she also exposed the Liberal sponsorship scandal so I trust her word over Iggy jumping on it. Yet the rest of us will continue not caring.
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
The banners on the left side and below do not show for registered users!
