Ce document propose des pistes de solution pour combler les lacunes du gouvernement fédéral en matière de dépenses environnementales.

With Canada’s federal budget just one month away, a new analysis from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac) finds that Canada still is not spending what it takes to respond to the climate crisis – but that effective, achievable solutions are at hand.

Federal climate spending will rise from 0.5 per cent of GDP today to 0.7 per cent over the next five years – still considerably below the 2 per cent target that experts believe is necessary to decarbonize the economy and compete in the global energy transition.

With cost-of-living and extreme weather events both on the rise, investing now in climate action is critical for long-term affordability.

CAN-Rac and CCPA highlight three practical steps that the federal government can take in Budget 2024 to address immediate affordability concerns and bring tangible benefits while cutting emissions:

• Expand the heat pump affordability program to lower energy bills, improve households’ quality of life, and cut emissions from buildings;
• Establish a youth climate corps to fill skills shortages while bridging youth into good green jobs; and
• Extend the windfall profits tax to the oil and gas sector, to ensure that polluters pay their fair share, as countries such as the UK have done, which could raise $4.2 billion or more.

All of these measures are popular: there is more interest in heat pumps than ever, while recent polls have found that 78 per cent of Canadians support or can accept a Youth Climate Corps, and that 62 per cent agree with a windfall tax on oil and gas companies’ record profits.

Dans ce rapport, l’auteur propose un impôt sur le revenu des particuliers municipal administré par l’ARC. Un impôt de 1 % sur les plus riches, par exemple, pourrait rapporter des dizaines de millions de dollars pour financer les services publics et les infrastructures.

Cities lack sufficient revenue to meet increasing service demands due to downloaded costs from higher government levels over the past three decades. Additionally, ownership and responsibility for physical infrastructure have shifted towards municipalities in the last half century. 

This report shows that if the federal government directed the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to collect municipal personal income taxes, cities could decide to implement a local income tax. A one per cent tax on the richest, for example, could raise tens of millions of dollars to pay for public services and infrastructure.

Author David Macdonald estimates how much 34 city governments could raise if they changed any of the top four federal income tax brackets. For example, if cities imposed a one per cent municipal tax on incomes over $246,000, these are examples of the amounts of revenue that could be raised for specific city governments in 2025:

• The City of Vancouver could raise $48 million
• The City of Calgary could raise $67 million
•  The City of Winnipeg could raise $16 million

If cities broadened the tax base by imposing a one per cent additional tax on personal income over $56,000 in 2025, these are examples of the amounts they could raise:

• The City of Toronto could raise $340 million
• The City of Québec could raise $60 million
• The City of Halifax could raise $45 million

This modernized approach to city revenue raising would give cities discretion over its use and it would promote flexibility and political responsibility.

Dans cette publication, les auteurs proposent des prévisions macroéconomiques. Les résultats montrent que ces scénarios représentent des facteurs de risque importants pour l’évolution de l’économie canadienne. En particulier, le scénario de prix de pétrole élevé est plutôt bénéfique pour l’économie canadienne tandis qu’une récession américaine nous plonge dans une récession.

La politique économique et les décisions des banques centrales et des gouvernements s’appuient généralement sur des prévisions économiques qui représentent « les meilleures estimations de la trajectoire future des variables économiques d’intérêt que les analystes peuvent établir en utilisant les données disponibles ». Or, une gestion prudente suggère de prendre en compte les risques associés aux prévisions.

Ce rapport indique que le gouvernement du Québec planifie de réaliser des projets de transport collectif d’envergure dans les prochaines années, alors que des dizaines de milliards de dollars investis ne sont pas toujours pleinement justifiés et que certains projets ne sont pas conformes aux meilleures pratiques reconnues mondialement.

« Plusieurs grands projets de transport collectif au Québec connaissent des ratées importantes en raison d’enjeux de gouvernance et d’un manque de planification, affirme Jacques Roy, professeur titulaire au département de gestion des opérations et de la logistique à HEC Montréal et auteur de l’étude. Que ce soit à Montréal, à Québec ou à Gatineau, les Québécois sont en droit de s’inquiéter. On peut d’ailleurs penser au projet du REM dont la première phase a été livrée avec trois ans de retard et des coûts évalués à près de 8 milliards de dollars, soit 45 % de plus que ce qui avait été prévu initialement. »

Bien que le gouvernement du Québec ait déjà annoncé son intention de créer une agence afin de gérer l’exécution des grands projets de transport collectif, l’auteur s’interroge sur le fonctionnement de cette dernière. « L’agence suscite l’espoir de plusieurs intervenants. Toutefois, il faut être prudent. On risque fort de retrouver la même équipe d’experts qui planchent sur les projets en cours sans parvenir à livrer la marchandise. », explique Jacques Roy.

Au rythme auquel les coûts des projets de transport collectif augmentent à travers le monde, il devient urgent de chercher à réduire les montants de tels projets en s’inspirant des meilleures pratiques. Parmi les pistes de solution avancées dans l’étude, le chercheur de HEC Montréal met de l’avant l’obligation d’améliorer les premières phases du projet, soit le lancement et la planification, puis d’agir plus rapidement lors de l’exécution afin de limiter les risques d’explosion de coûts.

« Au Québec, on ne semble pas en mesure d’identifier correctement les besoins en amont, et c’est là où le bât blesse. Prenez par exemple le 3e lien à Québec. On a abandonné l’idée après avoir proposé différents moyens de relier les deux rives sans toutefois publier les études pouvant démontrer la nécessité d’entreprendre un tel projet. », illustre M. Roy.

Le présent rapport porte sur le plan des dépenses du gouvernement et le Budget principal des dépenses pour 2024-2025, qui appuie les deux premiers projets de loi de crédits, lesquels prévoient des dépenses de 449,2 G$. Des dépenses de 191,6 G$ doivent être approuvées par le Parlement.

Le Budget principal des dépenses du gouvernement pour 2024-2025 prévoit des autorisations de dépenses budgétaires de 449,2 milliards de dollars. Les autorisations votées, que le Parlement doit approuver, se chiffrent à 191,6 milliards de dollars. Les autorisations législatives, pour lesquelles le gouvernement a déjà obtenu l’approbation de dépenser du Parlement, totalisent 257,6 milliards de dollars. Comme dans les budgets de dépenses antérieurs, les sommes transférées aux autres ordres de gouvernement, aux particuliers et aux autres organismes représentent la majorité des dépenses prévues dans le Budget principal des dépenses, soit 283,0 milliards de dollars (63,0 pour cent). Parmi les montants dignes de mention, notons 81,1 milliards de dollars en prestations aux aînés et 52,1 milliards de dollars pour le Transfert canadien en matière de santé. Les dépenses de fonctionnement et en capital du gouvernement représentent 119,7 milliards de dollars (26,6 pour cent), tandis que les paiements d’intérêt sur la dette publique s’établissent à 46,5 milliards de dollars (10,4 pour cent). Le budget de 2024 n’ayant pas encore été déposé, le Budget principal des dépenses 2024-2025 ne comprend pas les nouvelles mesures budgétaires. Par conséquent, les autorisations budgétaires pour 2024-2025 augmenteront en fonction des demandes de financement qui devraient être présentées dans les budgets supplémentaires des dépenses. Le DPB peut offrir des séances d’information ou répondre à des questions sur les postes figurant dans le Budget principal des dépenses à l’étude.

Cette note aborde la mise à jour du taux de redevance pour les combustibles dans les communautés rurales au Canada.

Le 26 octobre 2023, le gouvernement a annoncé le doublement du taux du supplément pour les communautés rurales sur les remises de la redevance sur les combustibles, qui passera de 10 % à 20 % à partir d’avril 2024. Le 17 novembre 2023, le DPB a publié une estimation du coût de l’augmentation du taux du supplément pour les communautés rurales. En l’absence d’information se rapportant au financement de cette mesure, le DPB a supposé que tous les montants attribués aux remises « de base » issues de la redevance sur les combustibles et aux programmes fédéraux ne seraient pas affectés par la hausse du supplément rural. Le DPB avait également supposé que les remises issues de la redevance sur les combustibles et les programmes fédéraux en place à l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard ne seraient pas affectés. Les annonces récentes concernant les montants des remises de la redevance sur les combustibles (Remise canadienne sur le carbone (RCC)) et le retour des produits de la redevance sur les combustibles en 2024-20254 indiquent que l’augmentation du supplément rural sera financée par les produits perçus dans une province en fonction d’une nouvelle structure d’allocation pour le retour des produits. Le gouvernement a également indiqué que les ménages de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard recevraient le supplément rural.

Ce rapport présente comment l’amélioration de la croissance économique au Canada serait possible avec une réforme de l’impôt sur le revenu des particuliers au fédéral.

The COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, but economic growth in Canada remains sluggish. Low economic growth results in several negative consequences for Canadians, including slower growth in employment, incomes, and living standards. The future trajectory of Canada’s economy, however, is not set in stone. Reforming the federal personal income tax (PIT) system through tax reductions while eliminating several tax credits is one policy option that could boost economic growth and improve incentives for entrepreneurs. Meaningful changes to the PIT system have not been made in decades and are much overdue. The last fundamental reform to the system originated in 1987 with the publication of a major White Paper on taxation, and most of the changes that have taken place in the years since have been incremental and ad hoc. For instance, the top federal PIT rate was increased in 2016 from 29.0 to 33.0 percent. The government also lowered the second-lowest PIT rate from 22.0 to 20.5 percent, while eliminating several tax credits. Meanwhile, major tax reforms have been avoided or ignored. Canada has been uncompetitive on tax rates with jurisdictions in the United States for decades, but the federal government’s decision to increase its top PIT rate to 33.0 percent in 2016 has caused Canada’s tax competitiveness to deteriorate significantly in recent years. In 2023, out of 61 Canadian and US jurisdictions, Canadian provinces occupied the top eight positions for the highest top combined marginal PIT rates. The other two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, placed tenth and fifteenth, respectively. The ten provinces also have some of the highest combined marginal PIT rates at incomes of CA$75,000 and CA$150,000. Canada’s tax system has become increasingly complex over time and now consumes considerable resources in the form of compliance costs. One main source of this increasing complexity is tax expenditures—the proliferation of credits, deductions, and other special preferences. The Trudeau government eliminated a number of tax credits in 2016, but 149 federal PIT expenditures remain. Many of these tax expenditures do little to improve economic incentives and spur growth. The layering of tax expenditures for certain population groups or activities distorts the tax system and creates biases against individuals who are not eligible for these 2 Enhancing Economic Growth through Personal Income Tax Reform preferences. This paper identifies 49 different federal tax expenditures that should be eliminated, which would give the federal government $32.1 billion to lower marginal PIT rates. The revenue from the tax expenditures that should be eliminated and a modest reduction in government spending would provide the federal government an opportunity to remove the three middle income tax rates of 20.5 percent, 26.0 percent, and 29.0 percent. Moreover, the government could reduce the top marginal PIT rate from 33.0 to 29.0 percent and leave the bracket’s current income threshold as is. With these tax changes, Canadian provinces would be significantly more tax competitive with their counterparts in the United States, which, in turn, would provide a much-needed boost to the Canadian economy by improving incentives to work, save, and invest. These changes would establish a new tax landscape with just two federal PIT rates. Nearly all Canadians would face a marginal tax rate of 15.0 percent, while top earners would pay a marginal tax rate of 29.0 percent. Altogether, this package of tax reductions, fully implemented, would cost $37.7 billion. Canada’s tax system is in serious need of reform. It is now characterized by increasing complexity, numerous inefficient tax expenditures, and waning competitiveness. A broad-based reduction in marginal tax rates would improve economic incentives and tax efficiency, enhance growth, simplify the tax system, and increase living standards for Canadians.

Ce rapport traite notamment de la probabilité d’une crise budgétaire qui augmenterait à mesure que la dette fédérale continuerait de croître, car l’augmentation de la dette pourrait éroder la confiance des investisseurs dans la situation budgétaire du gouvernement américain.

The deficit increases significantly in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 30 years, reaching 8.5 percent of GDP in 2054. That growth results from rising interest costs and large and sustained primary deficits, which exclude net outlays for interest. Primary deficits are especially large given the forecast of low unemployment rates; those deficits average 0.6 percentage points of GDP more over the next 30 years than they did over the past 50 years.

Debt held by the public, boosted by the large deficits, reaches its highest level ever in 2029 (measured as a percentage of GDP) and then continues to grow, reaching 166 percent of GDP in 2054 and remaining on track to increase thereafter. That mounting debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook; it could also cause lawmakers to feel more constrained in their policy choices.

Dans ce rapport, l’auteur postule que les programmes fédéraux d’assurance sociale principalement conçus pour les personnes âgées représentent une part importante des dépenses fédérales et qu’ils représenteront des défis à l’avenir en raison du ralentissement de la croissance démographique.

In November 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau released its first post-pandemic U.S. population projections. Newly projected population growth is slower than in earlier projections. Although the COVID- 19 pandemic had a noticeable effect on U.S. population trends, the longer trajectory reflects other long- term factors, such as rising longevity and falling birth rates. Those trends will affect economic growth, health care and retirement costs, labor markets, housing demand, and debt service costs, which in turn will shape the fiscal challenges facing governments at all levels.

Dans cette note, les auteurs précisent que le gouvernement américain devrait reconsidérer les coupes dans les crédits d’impôt pour enfants.

A major tax policy debate is expected in 2025 over the pending expiration of the individual and estate tax provisions of the 2017 tax law. But policymakers should also use that debate to revisit the 2017 law’s deep, permanent cut in the corporate tax rate, from 35 to 21 percent. A growing body of research shows that the corporate rate cut has delivered large gains to top earners but done little for everyone else. Raising the corporate rate to 28 percent, as President Biden has proposed in his 2025 budget, would raise about $1.3 trillion over a decade, according to the Treasury Department, strengthening the federal budget outlook and supporting critical investments.

Ce rapport décrit les propositions les plus importantes en matière de recettes dans le budget du président.

Like the budget plan he submitted to Congress last year, it would partly reverse the Trump tax cuts for corporations and high-income individuals, clamp down on corporate tax avoidance, and require the wealthiest individuals to pay taxes on their capital gains income just as they are required to for other types of income, among other reforms.

Two significant new proposals in Biden’s budget this year are an increase in the corporate minimum tax that was enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act and a provision to improve the existing $1 million cap on corporate tax deductions for compensation.

Of the more than $5 trillion that would be raised by these proposals over a decade, about $1 trillion would go to targeted tax breaks, including expansions of the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, and health insurance premium tax credits.

Ce rapport aborde la vision de la loi sur les réductions d’impôt ainsi que celle sur la réduction de l’inflation dans le contexte de la loi CHIPS qui vise à instaurer une nouvelle loi industrielle aux États-Unis.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), enacted in 2017, presents one example of supply-side economic policymaking focused on lowering the cost of capital across the economy. The CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), both enacted in 2022, represent an alternative approach focused on large subsidies for semiconductors and renewable energy. The conventional supply-side approach relies on incentivizing investment across the economy, while the industrial policy approach relies on reallocating investment to specific industries. While the approaches differ, they share a reliance on similar linkages: new capital investment drives productivity growth, which grows the economy and raises wages for workers. The linkages take time to take effect, and it can be difficult to isolate the effects of tax policy on productivity and wage variables, particularly in the short term. One simple approach is to consider how investment performed relative to pre-law baseline projections. Following the TCJA, private nonresidential fixed investment outperformed pre-TCJA expectations.More complex academic research to date has supported the finding that the TCJA boosted investment. Following the IRA and CHIPS Act, aggregate private nonresidential fixed investment has roughly followed pre-law baseline projections, but the subcomponent of manufacturing structure investment has boomed. While we should be cautious about drawing too-strong conclusions based on the data so far, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of the merits sector-specific policymaking exemplified in IRA/CHIPS.

Cette note précise qu’en moyenne, les actionnaires américains imposables bénéficient d’un avantage fiscal d’un peu moins de 10 % pour les rachats par rapport aux dividendes et ils sont encore plus importants pour les actionnaires étrangers.

In this brief, the authors describe the features of the US tax system that favor buybacks over dividends. They also estimate the size of those tax advantages. In the absence of any excise taxes, they calculate that the US tax advantage for buybacks over dividends would be 7.2 percent. About two-thirds of the total US tax advantage is attributable to foreign shareholders. They test the sensitivity of their estimates to various assumed parameters and estimate the range of the tax advantage at between 6 and 10 percent. Even the lower bound of this range is significantly larger than the 1 percent excise tax under current law or a 4 percent rate proposed by the Biden Administration. Their estimates are static, and they do not attempt to estimate the general equilibrium effects of a change in the buyback excise (i.e., the effects on investment and distribution after corporations and investors have adjusted to the new tax rules). Subject to these caveats, their estimates suggest that increasing the buyback excise tax could raise additional federal revenue and still leave a tax advantage for buybacks.

Dans ce rapport, l’auteur propose et analyse quatre grands ensembles de réformes de l’impôt sur le revenu fédéral, neutres en termes de revenus, visant à créer un système plus simple et plus progressif, tout en soulignant que la simplification fiscale, bien qu’importante, entraîne des conséquences au-delà de la seule réduction de la complexité.

The author proposes and analyzes four major revenue-neutral sets of federal income tax reforms, each of which would create a simpler and more progressive system. A new page on the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center Website allows anyone to compare their filing requirements and tax burdens under the alternatives and the current system. Several major thematic conclusions emerge. The fundamental cause of tax complexity is conflict among consensus policy goals, including efficiency and equity. There is massive potential for simplification, but there is no such thing as “just” simplifying the tax code. Even if simplification is the only goal of a reform, it will not be the only effect. Simplification efforts should bear in mind people’s overall interaction with the government, not just with the tax system. The fundamental question is not the overall level of complexity, but whether tax rules (or spending programs or regulations) provide good value for the complexity they create. Although it is easy to write down simple tax systems on paper, it is much harder to enact or maintain such systems in the real world.

Ce texte aborde comment l’Union européenne pourrait intégrer les impacts liés à l’investissement et les réformes sociales dans son nouveau cadre budgétaire.

The European Union’s new fiscal framework aims to incentivise public investment and reforms by offering the option to extend the four-year fiscal adjustment period to seven years, thereby lowering the average annual fiscal adjustment requirement. Investments and reforms proposed by EU countries in their national medium-term fiscal structural plans can be expected to also inform the fiscal adjustment proposed by member states. Yet, the EU lacks an agreed methodology for deciding on the potential quantitative impact of investment and reforms on the fiscal adjustment required under the new rules. We first analyse the ‘investment friendliness’ of the new framework. Although the incentives offered for raising investment are powerful, the bar for extending the adjustment period mainly through higher investment is high, and the design of the new rules will make it hard to actually raise investment. We next propose an approach for quantifying the impact of investment and reform on debt sustainability in the context of the new framework, taking into account uncertainty about their implementation and their economic effects. Such a methodology would also help the European Commission evaluate the impacts of recently adopted measures. Developing this methodology will require revisiting the current commonly agreed methodologies for medium- and long-term capital stock and total factor productivity projections. We illustrate the potential impact of investment on debt sustainability analyses through calculations on three social investment measures, that is, combinations of reform and public spending that aim to increase human capital and labour force participation. While the impact of individual reforms on fiscal adjustment needs is generally modest, the combined impact of several measures could be notable.

Selon ce rapport, les retraités qui paient des impôts n’ont rien gagné dans le budget du chancelier la semaine dernière et les politiques annoncées depuis 2019, y compris le gel de six ans des seuils d’imposition, réduiront les revenus des retraités de 900 livres sterling par an en moyenne. Les pertes les plus importantes sont ressenties par les retraités ayant les revenus les plus élevés.

This has prompted accusations that the Government has neglected older generations ahead of the next election. But recent tax rises need to be seen in the longer-term context of policy generally favouring pensioners since 2010. Taking a rounded view of all tax and benefit policies announced since then – most importantly the introduction of the ‘Triple Lock’ and the New State Pension – shows that pensioners are, on average, actually £1,000 better off. Looking over this longer period, the biggest cash gains accrue to middle-income pensioner households – who are set to gain £1,400 on average. Pensioners in the poorest fifth of the population are set to gain £560 on average, and only those in the richest 5 per cent are set to lose overall, by £1,800 on average.

These longer-term changes, the fact that pensioners already pay lower rates of tax due to their exemption from National Insurance, and the fact that pensioners today are less likely to be in poverty than the rest of society, all mean that, given his desire to cut personal taxes, the Chancellor was right to focus tax cuts in the way he did in the Budget.

Selon ce rapport, le moment est venu d’indexer à nouveau le barème de l’impôt sur le revenu des personnes physiques afin d’éliminer définitivement les effets de « bracket creep » pour l’avenir.

In aggregate, the previously legislated 3 stages of personal income tax cuts announced in the 2018 Budget roughly match indexation of the tax scale over the 7 years, but with some redistribution of the tax burden from higher income taxpayers to lower income taxpayers. The newly legislated “stage 3a” tax cuts in aggregate still roughly match indexation, but with a distribution of tax cuts that more closely matches the bracket creep effects over the 7 years.

With personal income tax having been around half of total Commonwealth tax revenue for half a century and the structure of the tax rate scale having been intensely debated over recent year, now is the time to lock that in by indexing the rate scale to permanently remove bracket creep effects.

Dans cet article, les auteurs proposent de nouvelles estimations sur l’évolution des inégalités de revenus et de la richesse en Inde depuis 1922 démontrant, entre autres, qu’une restructuration du code des impôts ainsi que des investissements publics sont nécessaires.

We combine national income accounts, wealth aggregates, tax tabulations, rich lists, and surveys on income, consumption, and wealth in a consistent framework to present long run homogeneous series of income and wealth inequality in India. Our estimates suggest that inequality declined post-independence till the early 1980s, after which it began rising and has skyrocketed since the early 2000s. Trends of top income and wealth shares track each other over the entire period of our study. Between 2014-15 and 2022-23, the rise of top-end inequality has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration. By 2022-23, top 1% income and wealth shares (22.6% and 40.1%) are at their highest historical levels and India’s top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world. In line with earlier work, we find suggestive evidence that the Indian income tax system might be regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth. We emphasize that the quality of economic data in India is notably poor and has seen a decline recently. It is therefore likely that our results represent a lower bound to actual inequality levels. We call for improved access to official data and greater transparency to enhance the study of inequality and enable evidence-based public debates.