The opinions and recommendations in this report, and any errors, are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders of this report. [...] Among our tax reform recommendations: Increase the progressivity of the income tax system: While there have been some modest increases in the top marginal income tax rate federally and provincially, the income tax system could do a much better job at mitigating market-driven increases in inequality and the concentration of income and wealth at the very top. [...] This included a reduction of the general corporate income tax (CIT) rate in a series of steps, from 21% in 2007 to 15% in 2012, as well as limitation of the capital tax in 2006 and elimination of the corporate surtax in 2008. [...] The top decile often conceals the extreme inequality at the top of the distribution, so we break the top 10% into the top 1%, the next 4%, and the next 5%.16 Some anomalies can emerge in the bottom decile because this can include ostensibly wealthier households reporting large capital losses and closing the year with low income. [...] 13 This is the conclusion of the state-of-the-art economic analysis by American economists Peter Diamond and Emmanual Saez in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, and a key recommendation of the Mirrlees review in the UK, which is the most comprehensive tax review undertaken in the developed world in the last decade.
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