Five reasons to say no to more corporate tax cuts

Posted on January 28, 2011 in Governance Debates

Source: — Authors:

TheGlobeandMail.com – ROB/economy  – Economy Lab
Posted on Friday, January 28, 2011.   Armine Yalnizyan

The Harper government ’s commitment to further reduce the general corporate income tax rate while the nation struggles with budgetary deficits has been championed by – surprise! – the corporate sector. But the majority of Canadians, including business owners, and those who work for them, say no to these cuts now.

Here are five economic reasons not to keep reducing the federal corporate tax rate this year or next.

Least effective job creation measure

According to the nation’s official number crunchers, if you want policy to encourage job creation, cutting corporate taxes is the weakest option (20 cents growth from every dollar of tax cut). Spending on infrastructure has the most impact ($1.50 on every dollar spent). Finance shows spending on income supports for the unemployed and low income Canadians has an equally big pop, and housing initiatives are almost as good ($1.40 for every dollar spent).

Little Impact on investments

Federal corporate tax rates have fallen from 28 per cent in 2000 to 18 per cent in 2010. Business investment (in non-residential structures and equipment) as a share ofGDP was 12.4 per cent in 2000. It was also 12.4 per cent in 2009, and on track for the same in 2010. In the 1960s, the heyday of industrial expansion and economic development in Canada, the federal corporate tax rate was 40 per cent. Statistics Canada’s data on business investment starts in 1981. That year the federal corporate tax rate was 36 per cent, and business investment represented 11.5 per cent of the economy. By 1990 the federal corporate tax had fallen to 28 per cent. Business investment had fallen to 10.8 per cent of the economy. There are many things that drive business investment practices, and while taxes are a consideration they are not the primary factor in investment decisions. The historic evidence shows a commitment to this strategy is a costly faith-based proposition.

Pay more tax to cut taxes

Since Fall of 2010, the Harper team has been saying corporate tax cuts “pay for themselves” in closed-door meetings like these. But Budget 2009 figures show reducing the general corporate tax rate from 22.12 per cent in 2007 to 18 per cent by January, 2010, removed $6.7-billion annually from public coffers, right through the worse of the recession. Cutting the rate further this year, to 16.5 per cent meant another $2.8-billion in foregone revenues annually. The Harper team’s commitment to reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 per cent ultimately reduces the size of the public purse by $13.7-billion annually by 2012, according to Finance estimates, at which time the federal budgetary deficit will be between $21- and $26-billion (the range of Finance, PBO and IMF estimates). Financing this tax cut requires borrowing more money. The average Canadian taxpayer will pay interest on the borrowed money to provide a tax break for profitable corporations.

False economies

The Harper government viewed infrastructure spending as an extraordinary one-time stimulus measure. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates a $123-billion deficit in backlogged repairs and maintenance to core municipal infrastructure. This includes roads, bridges, water and waste systems, transit and municipal buildings – but not social housing, schools or hospitals. FCM estimates another $115-billion for new builds to meet new demands. Corporations may be getting a break, but they aren’t responsible for public infrastructure. Governments are. We are. It is a false economy to stick the next generation with an unnecessarily high price tag for what should be happening now – rebuilding the foundation for business, family and community needs everywhere, while the cost of borrowing is at historic lows and unemployment is still high.

The question of working capital

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says Canada’s tax rates on new business investment are the lowest in the G7. Erin Weir’s blistering riposte to Jack Mintz shows our corporate tax rates among the lowest in the developed world. Who are we competing with? It’s time for a reality check: Canada’s corporate sector is sitting on a growing pile of capital. In the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s the business sector was a net borrower of cash to cover their costs, as one might expect during lean times. In contrast, during this recession the business sector just kept generating bigger and bigger surpluses. In 2007 the net surplus of the sector was $43-billion. By 2008, it was $57-billion and by 2009, $59-billion. By third quarter 2010, $51-billion was generated in surplus. That’s the surplus in the annual flow. The accumulated stock of ready cash (currency, deposits and short term paper) in the non-financial corporate sector had grown to $489-billion by third quarter 2010. That’s a lot of money. When it finally gets put to work, we are likely to witness a wave of corporate consolidation. But mergers and acquisitions don’t necessarily create jobs in Canada.

An across-the-board general corporate income tax rate cut rewards companies whether they create jobs or kill them. The primary sector of the Canadian economy is increasingly in the hands of off-shore investors, who take the profits and jobs elsewhere. That’s global capitalism, but we don’t need to reward it. We can target and reward the firms that put their capital to work in Canada, creating jobs and value-added enterprises.

Armine Yalnizyan is a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/the-economists/five-reasons-to-say-no-to-more-corporate-tax-cuts/article1886449/ >

Tags: , , , , ,

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Governance Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply