The Weyburn Chamber of Commerce is speaking out against proposed changes to taxation of private corporations in Canada.
The Federal Department of Finance is considering major changes to how private corporations are taxed in Canada. Changes proposed will negatively impact local businesses by raising taxes, reducing the incentive for private investment, increasing administrative burden and creating additional challenges to the intergenerational transfer of business shares to family members.
“Small businesses are vital to our economy and have been pivotal to the economic resiliency we have seen in the past,” said Larry Heggs, Chamber of Commerce chair.
“The Weyburn Chamber of Commerce will be active on this front and we encourage our members to get involved in opposing the federal government’s proposed changes”.
The Weyburn Chamber of Commerce encourages local businesses to write to the Federal Minister of Finance, the Honourable Bill Morneau and the Federal Minister from Saskatchewan Ralph Goodale to express their concerns on this proposed tax strategy. More information on how to voice your concerns can be found on the Chamber’s Facebook page or our website.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is offering to organize 25 cross-country forums on the proposed tax changes.
“I welcome the Minister’s wish to meet with small business owners. To assist, the Canadian Chamber is offering to provide 25 forums across Canada, organized by our network of local chambers between now and the end of November, for the Minister and his colleagues to explain the government’s tax reform proposals to small businesses and hear their concerns,” explained Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
“This would be without cost to the government. Our only preconditions would be that the government put these massive tax changes on hold to allow time for these meetings to take place and that it commit to fairly consider the issues raised.”
The federal government’s tax reform would affect private businesses across the country by restricting the way business owners can pay salaries to family members, limiting a business owner’s ability to save income into capital gains, as well as eliminating the possibility for business owners to make passive investments.
“I believe the Minister when he says that his goal is tax fairness. That is our goal, too. And I believe it is the goal of the over 200,000 businesses represented by the Canadian Chamber network. Legitimate small business owners want to be treated with respect by their government, and certainly have no interest in subsidizing people who are simply trying to avoid carrying their fair share of the burden,” said Beatty.
