Spending restraint is key to achieving a balanced federal budget over the next five years and should form part of Ottawa’s March Budget. This Backgrounder demonstrates how to limit the rise in the federal debt by prudently reining in spending growth rather than raising taxes, so that past and...

The 2011 Canadian federal budget, should it succeed in Parliament, would launch a new strategic spending review, alongside minor cost-cutting initiatives. The fate of the budget balance and the potential for an early return to surplus as envisioned, therefore, depend entirely on the...

Investment in plant and equipment per worker by business in Canada has long lagged that in the United States and other major developed countries, likely contributing to disappointing productivity growth in Canada. Fiscal and regulatory changes that would increase the rewards to investment and...

British Columbia is on the right track with its controversial move to a harmonized sales tax (HST), according to this report. The authors say the shift to a value-added tax mirrors patterns in most of the developed world, and helped move the province from being a high tax, investment-unfriendly...

What impact do the tax systems of Canada’s Western provinces have on families’take-home pay and seniors’ pension income, and how does it compare to other provinces? This report answers the question by looking at marginal effective tax rates (METRs) on personal income, which measure the...

In the 2011 Canadian federal election, the Conservative Party pledged to allow couples with minor children to split up to $50,000 of their incomes each year for tax purposes. Tax savings would arise to the extent that the spouses’ marginal tax rates differ. Advocates of splitting claim an...

Ontario’s new “tax on the rich,” which was introduced in the 2012 Budget, affects 25,000 high-income earners and their families. These families matter a lot for the province’s fortunes: about one of every five income tax dollars in Ontario already comes out of their pockets. Ontario’s...

More than a decade after Quebec and the federal government implemented significant personal income tax rate reductions, what has happened to Quebecers’ take-home pay? This paper answers the question by looking at marginal effective tax rates (METRs) on personal income, which measure the impact...

The marginal effective tax rate (METR) on personal income, explain the authors, measures the impact, on take-home pay, of federal and provincial income taxes combined with the impact of reductions and clawbacks of income-tested tax credits and benefits as individual or family income rises. These...