Corporate Tax Giveaway to the U.S.

A few months ago, I tore a strip off Barrie McKenna’s column on internal trade. But today I write to praise his column on corporate taxes: U.S.-based companies . . . are taxed by the Internal Revenue Service on their global income. So any profits they don’t reinvest and try to repatriate are hit with the higher U.S. rate, not […]

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Do Corporate Tax Cuts Boost Investment Over the Hurdle?

Andrew Jackson has engaged perhaps the strongest theoretical argument for corporate tax cuts: that they make more new investments viable by lowering the pre-tax return needed to get over an after-tax hurdle rate of return. (Indeed, I remember the C. D. Howe Institute’s Finn Poschmann lionizing Andrew Coyne for making this argument halfway through TV Ontario’s last post-budget panel.) Imagine […]

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Corporate Taxes and Jobs: Myers Discovers the Business Cycle

I have reviewed Jayson Myers’ recent Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters report on corporate tax cuts, which I made public yesterday. Proponents of lower corporate taxes usually argue that these will help Canada compete with other countries in attracting internationally-mobile investment. However, as Myers admits, “over the past decade, reductions in Canada’s effective and average combined statutory corporate tax rates have […]

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Jay Myers Shills for Corporate Tax Cuts

Jayson Myers from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) is touting a report supposedly showing that corporate tax cuts will create 99,000 jobs. News stories indicate that it is “set for release” or “being released Wednesday morning.” I could not find the report online, so I phoned the CME. I was initially told that it would be posted around 10am […]

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Let’s Import our Way to Manufacturing Recovery.

Today Stephen Harper announced that the Conservatives will support the hard hit manufacturing sector  by “abolishing tariffs on a wide range of imported machinery and equipment.” There’s no question that higher rates of real investment in new plant and equipment are essential to a manufacturing recovery.  That’s why manufacturing unions,  the CLC and all parties on the Industry Commitee  of […]

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Policy Conference Presentations

The presentations from the Ottawa Economics Association’s 2007 Policy Conference are now available online. They include a fascinating exposition on China’s manufacturing sector, a business perspective on Canadian manufacturing, Buzz Hargrove on the Canadian economy, and the Fraser Institute’s take on global warming.

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