CME calls on Finance Ministers to discuss Canadian tax competitiveness at today’s FPT meeting

Ottawa, June 26, 2018

Canadian provincial and territorial finance ministers are gathering today in Ottawa to meet with Federal Finance Minister. While Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) is glad steel and aluminum tariffs are on the agenda, we are strongly urging the ministers to address Canada’s crumbling tax competitiveness as part of the discussions.

As proven in a report issued last week — Restoring Canada’s Tax Advantage: A Need for Tax Reform – Canadian businesses are seriously struggling to compete globally and foreign investment is passing us by.

Canada’s business environment has been gradually deteriorating in recent years and a wide range of tax and regulatory measures are adding to the cost and uncertainty of doing business. This is something governments must address urgently. CME recommends that business competitiveness be restored by:

  • Immediately lowering the headline corporate income tax rate from 28 per cent to 20 per cent.
  • Matching the accelerated capital cost allowance provisions now in place in the United States, giving businesses an immediate 100 per cent tax write-off on qualifying capital asset purchases.
  • Appointing a Royal Commission on Taxation chaired and staffed by tax and economic policy experts to review Canada’s tax system and make wholesale reforms that will modernize and simplify Canada’s tax code.

ABOUT CANADIAN MANUFACTURERS & EXPORTERS

Since 1871, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters has been helping manufacturers grow at home and, compete around the world. Our focus is to ensure manufacturers are recognized as engines for growth in the economy, with Canada acknowledged as both a global leader and innovator in advanced manufacturing and a global leader in exporting. CME is a member-driven association that directly represents more than 2,500 leading companies who account for an estimated 82 per cent of manufacturing output and 90 per cent of Canada’s exports.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Stefi Proulx

Director of Communications & Branding

Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters

(613) 292-6070

stefi.proulx@cme-mec.ca