Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s business tax relief goals are a welcome start to tax relief, but should be accompanied by a broadening of the corporate tax base to make taxes more neutral and fair and enable future reductions, according to a report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In Flaherty’s...

Unusual economic and political circumstances surround the framing of the 2009 federal budget. A period of global spending outrunning productive capacity has ended with financial crisis and recession in much of the world, Canada included. The sudden slump has prompted demand for, and expectations...

The 2009 federal budget proposed a $40 billion economic stimulus package spanning two years and projecting a return to balanced budgets within five. The projected quick recovery of federal finances relies primarily on aggressive assumptions about future interest rates, growth of program...

While the sagging economy is focusing attention on fiscal policy’s capacity to fight a slump, another challenge looms – the demographic pressures on future program spending. Short-term stimulus can only succeed if it preserves confidence in the long-run capacity of Canadian governments to...

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s March 19 budget included important — and unexpected — proposals that would dramatically reshape income tax rules affecting foreign investment by Canadian corporations. The budget’s proposal to withdraw tax deductibility for interest expenses...

The federal government’s new Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) can help correct the problem of government clawback provisions that discourage or effectively prohibit spersonal saving, provided that provinces and territories refrain from imposing new asset tests and clawbacks that undo...