A new tax measure, introduced by the federal government this summer, aims to stop people from using companies to cheat the tax system, but local businesses say it will make it harder for them to continue work.
Members of the Canadian Senate were in Calgary on Tuesday and representatives of a number of local businesses met with them to give their feedback on the tax reform plan.
In the reform strategy, the Canadian government wanted to stop people from hiding income in sources like real estate or the stock market to avoid paying personal income tax.
Two weeks ago, Finance Minister Bill Morneau attempted to make the reform more palatable for business owners by scrapping the measure on capital gains.
He also cut the small business tax rate from 10.5 percent to nine percent and put a lighter touch on the measure on income sprinkling.
However, business owners say the changes aren’t enough.
“Sadly, I don’t think the federal government is listening on this issue,” said Adam Legge with the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. “I think they are moving ahead with some sort of pre-conceived notion of what the middle class is, what fairness is, of what loopholes are, of what the tax code should be and will put forward some detrimental changes.”
They don’t want to see anymore tweaks at all. In fact, they’d rather see the Liberal government scrap the reform plan altogether.
The meeting on Tuesday was part of the Senate committee’s cross-Canada review process.
