Yes. No buts. No ifs. Just when. A minimum set of questions should be asked to decide whether Canada should have a wealth tax. What’s the purpose of a wealth tax? If one thinks a wealth tax is there solely to raise revenue, one just might be disappointed. Don’t get me wrong – it […]
Thinking About Collective Wealth and Consumption
Most tax issues elicit a conversation, particularly when shed of the "technical" but for many arcane language of tax specialists, they are seen in the light of their impact on what broadly we might call "civil society" but more generally might be described as how we respond to critical questions about how we live […]
Universal Basic Income: A Fitting Rebuttal to COVID-19’s Economic Consequences?
“A universal basic income seems a fitting rebuttal to the universal hardship wrought by the current pandemic.” The latter statement, which served as the concluding remark in an Macleans opinion piece discussing the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic, once again adds fuel to the impassioned discourse surrounding the implementation of a universal basic income […]
Wealth Taxes – A Poor Solution for Canada
As a Canadian tax policy commentator, I am troubled when U.S. policy proposals are reflexively promoted by some in Canada, without necessarily examining whether the underlying rationale applies in this country. For example, the wealth tax proposals advocated by Democratic primary candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were developed in the U.S. context of […]
The Way We Were? The Way We Must Be? The ‘Arm’s Length Principle’ Sees Itself (for What It Is) in the ‘Digital’ Mirror
Click here to read Professor Scott Wilkie's thoughts on the "Arm's Length Principle" with respect to the OECD and international taxation - originally published in the Intertax Journal (Volume 47, Issue 12, pp. 1087 - 1102, 2019). Please note, a subscription is required to access the content. - Corey LeBlanc
The ‘Source’ of the International Tax Conundrum
Click here to read Professor Scott Wilkie's thoughts on the "International Tax Conundrum" - originally published on the Kluwer International Tax Blog (February 10, 2020). - Corey LeBlanc
“Diving” into Tax Treaty Issues: The Deep End or the Shallow End?
The United Kingdom Supreme Court’s recent decision in Fowler v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, [2020] UKSC 22, is likely to be seen as an important international tax case and, to that end but possibly without as much justification as discussion in the tax community may make it seem, as a “tax […]
Eligible Dividend Designations – Let’s Change the Default Rule for Public Corporations and their Subsidiaries
Some of the annoying complexity of our tax system stems from how we integrate corporate taxes and personal taxes when a corporation pays a dividend to an individual shareholder. Our integration system grosses up the dividend (to reflect the assumed amount of income earned by the corporation before its corporate taxes), applies the personal […]
Should the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) be extended a few more months?
That’s a question for the moment for Canada. Headlines like “Extending CERB for months could double $60-billion budget, PBO report suggests” would make deficit hawks scream. In order to start having a meaningful public discourse about this, a minimum set of policy questions is needed to be asked. What’s the policy purpose of Canada […]
The Tech Giants, COVID-19 and Digital Taxation
The global tech giants, such as the FAANGS (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google and Shopify) in the US and the BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) in China are proving themselves to be “essential” in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic by allowing people to stay connected, and public institutions as well as essential businesses to […]