Art Sinclair
The Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce supports over 1700 members representing all sectors of the Waterloo Region economy. Our membership includes small, medium, and large employers in one of Canada’s most progressive and innovative regions.
Waterloo Region is designated as Canada’s tenth and Ontario’s fourth largest urban area from last year’s census, with a 2016 year-end population of 583,500 expected to reach 725,000 by 2031. Population growth is relatively consistent across the Region’s seven lower-tier municipalities at one to two percent in both the cities and rural townships.
Our local economy is among the most diverse in Canada, with concentration across advanced manufacturing, financial services, post-secondary education, food processing/primary agriculture, and information technology. Industry analysts have frequently cited this diversity as the fundamental strength of Waterloo Region’s globally successful and entrepreneur-driven business sector.
We are pleased to respond to the Department of Finance Canada’s discussion paper Tax Planning Using Private Corporations and the proposals advanced for review.
Our Chamber supports the position of the Coalition for Small Business Tax Fairness that the government not move forward with the proposals continued in the aforementioned document. In particular, we do not support changing current rules in the areas of:
While it has been suggested by senior government officials that the proposed changes are targeted to close tax loopholes aimed at the wealthy, they will rather affect the majority of business owners who are firmly in the middle class. Data collected from Statistics Canada and other federal sources shows that two-thirds of small business owners earn less than $73,000 annually and half of those earn less than $33,000. The proposals if implemented will make an already complex income Tax Act more difficult to interpret and apply for many small businesses, will not achieve the objective of simplifying the Act, and converselt increase the many challenges for Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) auditors in interpreting all relevant rules. The proposals as written will only lead to a higher level of uncertainty for small and medium-sized business owners who currently find CRA compliance as a daily ordeal.
