Archive: May, 2016

Pursuant to a request from Mr. Pierre-Luc Dusseault, Member of Parliament for Sherbrooke, this note provides a cost estimate of Bill C-239:  An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act (Charitable Benefits).

This note presents an estimate of the fiscal impact of Bill C-241, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (school authorities).

This note presents detailed analysis of the first supplement to the Government’s Main Estimates for the 2016-17 fiscal year.

In response to a request from Senator Larry Smith, Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) uses four methods to estimate the level of a hypothetical benefit available to taxpayers in the second tax bracket, where the overall cost of these benefits is equivalent in size to the estimated level of revenues generated from introducing a 33.0 per cent tax rate on income over $200,000.

In response to a request by a Member of Parliament, PBO has prepared estimates of the fiscal and economic impacts of the Budget 2016 decision to maintain the small business tax rate and corresponding effective dividend tax rate at 10.5 per cent.  The rate had been legislated to gradually decrease to 9 per cent under Budget 2015.  

PBO estimates that in 2013-14, total federal spending on postsecondary education reached $12.3 billion. Taking into account recent Budget 2016 announcements, PBO estimates total federal spending on postsecondary education will exceed $15.7 billion by 2020-21. Over the past ten years, federal postsecondary spending targeted towards human capital formation has disproportionately benefitted wealthier families. This was due to a growing share of federal support provided through the tax system in particular and Registered Education Savings Plans.