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Ottawa (25 Feb. 2021) — Last week, Canadians for Tax Fairness released a Fair Tax Recovery Plan demonstrating how the federal government could raise more than $70 billion in annual revenues by introducing progressive tax reforms in coming budgets.
“This year’s budget absolutely needs to focus on the recovery and building back better with a stronger social safety net, improved public services like pharmacare and child care, and significant investments in a low-carbon economy to create hundreds of thousands of jobs,” said Toby Sanger, economist and director of Canadians for Tax Fairness.
Report answers question about how to pay for recovery
“Many will ask how the federal government can afford to pay for it all. Our plan shows how a range of progressive tax measures can fund programs that will help Canadians and the economy recover," said Sanger.
Getting e-commerce multinationals and the wealthy to pay their share
The Liberal government has promised to make our tax system fairer in a number of ways, including by ensuring e-commerce giants pay their fair share of taxes, exploring ways to tax extreme wealth, and introducing automatic tax filing for low incomes. The Canadian for Tax Fairness report recommends that the federal government also move forward in this budget with
- a pandemic surtax on top incomes and pandemic super-profits tax
- an annual net-wealth tax on extreme wealth
- closing the most regressive tax loopholes
- clamping down on widely used corporate tax-dodging schemes
- increased transparency and accountability around corporate ownership
- strengthening the carbon tax framework and introducing a carbon border tax
- introducing automatic tax filing for low incomes before making it available to all Canadians
“These tax reforms would not only help the federal government achieve their goal of reducing inequality but also raise significant revenues to pay for the costs of COVID-19 and rebuild a stronger, more sustainable economy,” said Sanger.