Municipal reliance on property taxes and the competing priorities of municipalities — in terms of where they plan and approve land development within their boundaries — in order to capture new property taxes, has led to political conflict between adjacent municipalities. Nowhere in Alberta...

In this paper, we provide an overview of the equalization grant system in Canada and the issues that have been raised concerning the reform of the fiscal transfer system. Any reforms to the equalization grant system have to balance three concerns — “efficiency” effects that arise through...

Equalisation grants can affect a state's fiscal behaviour because its tax policies can affect the size of its grant. For a large state, an increase in its tax rate will increase the standard tax rate used to calculate the grant for that base and thereby reduce (increase) the state's grant if it...

Lethbridge County introduced a new business tax on confined feeding operations (CFO), notably feedlots, in 2016. It was expected to bring in $2.5 million for county road maintenance in 2017. However, the tax could have a detrimental impact on feedlot owners and is not the fairest way to amass...

This paper describes the tax and expenditure externalities that can occur in a federation, focusing on the (relatively neglected) vertical tax and expenditure externalities which arise when state governments' tax and expenditure decisions affect the federal government's budget constraint and...