Real cuts for citizens, tax cuts for corporations

Martin Regg Cohn, Opinion, The Toronto Star:

The New Democratic Party keeps posing a good question to the Liberal government: If we are all being asked to sacrifice because government expenditures must be reined in, why not shore up the revenue side of the equation to ease the pain?

Ontario is in the process of cutting corporate tax rates to historic lows. In the 2008 budget, the Liberal government announced a phased reduction from 14 per cent to 10 by mid-2013.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath argues that there is still time to reverse the process, preserving hundreds of millions of dollars in foregone revenue at the very time that billions of dollars must be found to balance the budget. The combined federal-provincial tax rate in Ontario is lower than in the U.S., which seems overly generous at a time when corporations are reaping the benefits of the more business-friendly HST.

Still, it’s a populist issue true to the NDP’s roots. Despite the hyperbole from Duncan about “job-killing taxes,” the New Democrats aren’t suggesting punitive measures against corporations, merely a more measured — and measurable — approach that rewards job-creation with specific tax incentives. That’s different from the blank cheque that comes from giving all corporations a break, whether or not they re-invest in new equipment or create jobs.

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