Business owners split on proposed revamp
OTTAWA• A new poll of small business owners suggests their views about the proposed tax changes are less hostile than the political debate would have many believe — but the potential change to passive investment income provokes the most concern, with 55 per cent calling it unfair and 42 per cent saying it will hurt their business.
Meanwhile, a large majority ( 63 per cent) say the proposed income sprinkling changes would have no impact on their business. Even so, 44 per cent say it’s an unfair change.
The proposed tax reforms, unveiled this summer, have sparked a firestorm of opposition from business lobby groups and Conservative MPs.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insists the proposals would simply stop the wealthy from getting unfair tax breaks by diverting money through private corporations, but opponents argue there are unintended impacts that will hit all small business owners, wealthy or not.
The Angus Reid Institute’s poll of 852 small business owners shows a more nuanced reaction. Overall, most of them think the proposed changes are unfair, but they are much more open to the crackdown on income sprinkling than they are on passive income.“Small business owners do not react in a monolithic way to the amendments,” Angus Reid said in a news release, adding that the divide in views is “driven largely by the size of their own ventures, and the amount of risk their businesses are carrying.”
Income sprinkling generally involves naming family members as shareholders and then splitting income among them to avoid higher tax brackets. The government is proposing a “reasonableness test” to ensure the family members are legitimately earning the income through involvement in the business (this test currently exists for paying salary to family members, but not dividends).
The poll shows 44 per cent of small business owners think the income sprinkling proposal is unfair, while 36 per cent think it’s fair and 20 per cent weren’t sure. Sixtythree per cent of owners say the income sprinkling change would have no impact on their business, while 24 per cent say it would have a negative impact.
When it comes to the proposed change to passive investment income, 55 per cent of the small business owners feel it’s unfair, and just 22 per cent say it’s fair. Twenty-three per cent were not sure.
The government is proposing to remove the initial advantage a small business owner has in starting an investment portfolio inside their company, rather than outside of it. Because small business income is taxed at 15 per cent, a small business owner has more to invest if they keep the income inside the corporation rather than draw it out, where it would be taxed at much higher personal rates.
The Liberals haven’t decided exactly how to reform this, but they’re essentially planning to add taxes to passive investment income when it is withdrawn from the company to eliminate the initial savings. Small business owners are evenly divided on the impact of this proposal, with 42 per cent saying it would hurt their business and 43 per cent saying it would have no impact.
Overall, entrepreneurs with five or more employees tended to be more likely to oppose the changes than those with fewer.
The survey was conducted between Sept. 13 and 18 among members of the Angus Reid Forum and Angus Reid Business Forum. A probability sample of business owners of this size would have a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.