You might wonder how legislators could possibly lose money by legalizing and taxing an addictive substance. Behold, Canadian officials have outdone themselves with the rollout of recreational cannabis. Both provinces and municipalities, many already in financial dire...
A few years ago, the federal Liberals told Canadians that they would help the middle class by raising taxes on the rich. According to the early evidence, the plan has flopped. This was entirely predictable. Indeed, in 2015, the C.D. Howe Institute (formerly chaired by...
“If I earned $100,000 [all figures Canadian unless noted] in Canada, after tax I would keep $64,000. If I earned $100,000 in Hong Kong, and made use of the married man’s tax allowance, I would keep $90,100.”
Day 16 - Advent is the season of preparing for Christmas. Here at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy we want to tell you about some of the things we would like to see under our tree. On Day 16 we wish for a single income tax rate which would vastly simplify...
It’s a well-known pattern in public policy – profligate politicians damaging their economies with out-of-control spending, massive borrowing and higher taxes – inevitably leading to fiscal crisis, sharp declines in growth and ultimately rapidly falling currency value...
Mass hysteria is the spontaneous manifestation of a particular behaviour by many people. There are numerous historical examples: Middle Age nuns at a convent in France spontaneously began to meow like cats; at another convent, nuns began biting one another. In...
My article on tax credits, with a particular focus on Saskatchewan’s recently removed Film Tax Credit, has been published today.
Tax credits are designed to reduce the financial burden on a particular industry to create jobs and improve living standards for all. They do so by encouraging outside investment into a local economy and provide incentives to existing business to expand. The theory is sound, but is a tax credit the best way to achieve these aims?
When Europe’s finance ministers meet for a group photo, it’s easy to spot the rebel — Anders Borg has a ponytail and earring. What actually marks him out, though, is how he responded to the crash. While most countries in Europe borrowed massively, Borg did not. Since becoming Sweden’s finance minister, his mission has been to pare back government. His ‘stimulus’ was a permanent tax cut. To critics, this was fiscal lunacy — the so-called ‘punk tax cutting’ agenda. Borg, on the other hand, thought lunacy meant repeating the economics of the 1970s and expecting a different result.
Readers presumably understand that Europe’s economic crisis is also the crisis of social democracy—of the idea that markets must be made to co-exist with high levels of taxation, regulation, unionization, welfare spending and subsidized health care and education. Eutopia may be nice in theory; it may even work for a while. But eventually social-democratic policies will lead to economic stagnation, policy paralysis and national bankruptcy on the continental scale we are witnessing today.
The Globe and Mail ran an excellent piece yesterday by David Campbell on the inefficiency of film tax credits. According to Campbell: "In 2008, this industry generated a negative direct gross domestic product (GDP) in New Brunswick. You didn’t read that wrong. For...
Americans looking for a way to tame government profligacy should look to Switzerland. In 2001, 85% of its voters approved an initiative that effectively requires its central government spending to grow no faster than trendline revenue.
My first radio piece for the Frontier Centre focuses on the announcement by the Wall government that the Saskatchewan Film Tax Credit will be removed: The uproar over the Wall government’s move to end Saskatchewan’s film tax credit cries out for a wider debate over...
With the Ontario NDP demanding a tax increase on upper income earners as a condition to prop up the McGuinty government, and the Alberta Liberals and NDP running on creating new tax brackets for the wealthy, it's worth taking a look at the news out of Britain. Despite...
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty achieved a number of objectives in his first bullet-proof budget, which was largely free of partisan contention and ideological conflict. It espoused cautious fiscal management. It affirmed incremental change – or, often enough, no change at all.