This paper begins by comparing the 1967 Smith committee’s three volume report on Ontario taxation with the 1993 report by the Ontario Fair Tax Commission. These two very different investigations of Ontario’s tax structure, produced in two very different economic and political climates, reached surprisingly similar conclusions. Despite their distinct political origins, both reports explicitly recognized that provincial corporate taxation was (and should be) constrained by the taxation of capital in neighboring jurisdictions, and both also argued for more and better use of user charges (and benefit-based taxes). The paper asks: Has anything changed? Does Ontario need to rethink its tax policy in light of today’s circumstances? Our aim is this paper is threefold: 1) to set out the principles and realities that should govern tax policy in Ontario, 2) to provide an empirical framework with respect both to the size of the fiscal task facing the province over the next decade or so and its “fiscal competitiveness”, and 3) to suggest how best to meet the province’s fiscal needs while simultaneously removing tax barriers to competitiveness and achieving such other policy goals as the equitable sharing of the cost of government.
