Business groups not giving up fight over federal tax changes
Business groups in Saskatchewan continued to express concerns over proposed changes to federal tax rules on Thursday, but this time they had the ear of the Liberal government.
Joel Lightbound, parliamentary secretary for the minister of finance, and a Quebec MP, was in Regina to hear concerns from different sectors.
Included in that group was Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) president Todd Lewis.
His list of concerns includes the swiftness with which the federal government is planning to put changes in place: They were announced this July and consultations are running to the beginning of October.
Lewis said the changes are “not well understood” and that “all businesses are concerned with that, not just farmers.”
Despite spending a little more than an hour with Lightbound and his staff, Lewis said he is “still confused” over how proposed changes, like income sprinkling and passive investments, will affect farmers.
He does know that farmers will be affected by what is being proposed, and is hopeful his concerns will be taken back to Ottawa.
Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce CEO Steve McLellan was less optimistic after the meeting.
That’s because, according to him, Lightbound “confirmed (Thursday) that at the end of the consultation period ... they will be tweaking it but moving ahead.”
McLellan added his advice to the federal government was to “do a reset. Let’s start again, let’s allow them to get this right, because clearly they have not.”
Like Lewis, he is raising concerns over clarity.
“The predictability of doing business is going to be greatly diminished. The cost of doing or redoing financial plans as a business will be greatly increased. (Business owners’) confidence that their federal government is going to be working on behalf of growth across Canada is greatly diminished,” he said.
“The reality is, this government came out with these in a very abrupt manner through a period of time where the consultation was challenged at best and impossible in most cases.”
For his part, Lightbound said it was important to come and listen to concerns to bring them back to his colleagues in Ottawa.
“There are some concerns about, for instance, the income sprinkling changes that we want to make to our tax system to make more fairness in our tax system,” he said. “We’ve proposed some changes and there are issues that were raised about the kind of test and how we would measure the reasonableness of the sprinkling and the income splitting, and so that’s a concern we’ve heard.”
He was adamant the Liberal government needs to “get the details right” and that is why “we’re actively listening to Canadians through this consultation.”
But he is standing by the notion there are “inequities” built into the tax system.