Bulletin de veille du 28 janvier 2020

Québec/Canada
Parmi les solutions proposées par les auteurs pour sortir les enfants de la Nouvelle-Écosse de la pauvreté, il y a notamment l’idée de rehausser et d’indexer à l’inflation la prestation pour enfants de la Nouvelle-Écosse.
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This report card profiles the number and percentage of children who live in poverty and provides analysis of how the rates differ by geography, social group, family type, and age. It also reports on the effect of government income.
Si elles sont bien pensées, les transformations dans les processus de travail et les relations entre l’État et les citoyens recèlent des bénéfices potentiels pour le gouvernement et la société québécoise tant sur le plan économique, financier que démocratique.
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Le présent rapport s’enracine dans une méthodologie basée sur l’économie de l’information. Il fait état d’une recension qui a permis d’identifier et d’analyser une partie de l’instrumentation informationnelle — législative, gouvernementale et administrative — présente au sein du gouvernement du Québec. Sans prétendre à l’exhaustivité étant donné la complexité que représente cette instrumentation, cette recension a permis de faire ressortir les principales lacunes de l’instrumentation actuelle et quelques pistes de solutions pour remédier à la situation.
Le gouvernement fédéral devrait s’engager dès maintenant à retrouver l’équilibre budgétaire, un objectif qui pourrait rapidement être atteint en limitant simplement la croissance de ses dépenses au seuil de l’inflation.
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Dans un tel contexte, ce rapport fait le point sur les déficits budgétaires fédéraux afin d’offrir un éclairage objectif sur les enjeux qui sous-tendent la stratégie budgétaire du gouvernement fédéral. La section qui suit présente d’abord une brève rétrospective de l’évolution de la dette publique fédérale. Quatre périodes charnières sont ainsi identifiées, soit: 1983–1995, 1996–2007, 2008–2015, 2015–2018. La seconde section met l’emphase sur la période 2015–2018 de manière à évaluer le risque encouru à court terme en cumulant des déficits. Nous verrons alors que la stratégie budgétaire des quatre dernières années s’est avérée rentable. En dépit des déficits cumulés, la valeur relative de la dette publique fédérale a diminué, les Canadiens ont bénéficié d’une offre de service jusqu’alors inégalée et la ponction du gouvernement dans l’assiette fiscale du pays est demeurée relativement faible. En revanche, la troisième section révèle que le véritable enjeu de cette stratégie se jouera à plus long terme si bien que les conséquences pour les prochaines générations de contribuables pourraient être plus importantes que ce que les données actuelles laissent présager.
Que faire avec le Fonds des générations et les revenus dédiés collectés qui y sont déposés une fois que les objectifs seront atteints? Les auteurs proposent quatre options pour amorcer la réflexion.
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Les objectifs de ratio de dette inscrits dans la Loi sur la réduction de la dette et instituant le Fonds des générations exigés pour l’année financière 2025‑2026 devraient être atteints plus tôt que prévu. La question du rôle futur du Fonds des générations se pose alors : que faire avec le Fonds des générations et les revenus dédiés collectés qui y sont déposés ? Cette question, le ministre des Finances du Québec la pose également dans le cadre des consultations prébudgétaires 2020‑2021.
Le but du présent Regard CFFP est donc d’amorcer une réflexion sur cette question en proposant des avenues ou options à explorer.
Cette discussion nécessite la projection de l’évolution du Fonds des générations à long terme. Étant donné les hypothèses posées, l’exercice montre que la valeur comptable du Fonds des générations atteindrait plus de 100 milliards de dollars à la fin de 2035‑2036. Puis, après avoir présenté les différentes catégories de dette utilisées au Québec, ces dernières sont aussi projetées à long terme. Ainsi, il est possible d’estimer les ratios d’endettement futurs qui servent alors de base à la discussion des options pour le rôle futur du Fond : Fermer le Fonds ? Créer de nouveaux objectifs ? Continuer, mais avec des cibles de remboursement ? Transformer le Fonds pour faire face à d’autres défis ?
Il n’y a pas de bonnes ou de mauvaises réponses aux questions soulevées par l’atteinte prochaine des objectifs de réduction de dette sur l’avenir du Fonds, mais il est nécessaire de prendre maintenant le temps de prévoir la suite. Le présent texte se veut une participation à cette discussion.
Les estimés des promesses électorales des différents partis fournis depuis 2017 ont permis une meilleure crédibilité du processus démocratique, mais le DPB fournit quelques pistes de solution pour en améliorer le fonctionnement.
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Sur une période de quatre mois en 2019 (du 24 juin au 20 octobre), le directeur parlementaire du budget (DPB) a chiffré, à la demande des partis politiques, plus de 200 mesures proposées. Le DPB a publié plus d’une centaine des évaluations effectuées.
Le DPB a entrepris un examen approfondi du contenu et du processus du premier service d’évaluation du coût financier des mesures proposées en campagne électorale (CMP). Cet examen s’appuie sur son expérience, ainsi que sur des consultations avec les partis politiques et avec des journalistes, des fonctionnaires fédéraux et des universitaires.
De l’avis général, le service d’évaluation du CMP offert aux partis politiques a renforcé la crédibilité du processus démocratique. Certains ajustements sont, cependant, souhaitables.
Ce rapport formule neuf recommandations :
Huit des recommandations s’appuient sur des pratiques efficaces (annexe B).
Sept d’entre elles sont d’ordre administratif et peuvent être mises en œuvre dans le cadre du mandat actuel du DPB.
L’autre recommandation (clarifier le cadre législatif) nécessitera l’adoption par le Parlement de modifications législatives à la Loi sur le Parlement du Canada (annexe C).
La dernière recommandation concerne l’adaptation du processus d’évaluation du CMP à des délais plus courts, comme ce serait le cas si le Parlement actuel était dissous avant la date fixée pour les prochaines élections.
L’auteur suggère qu’une réforme législative devrait augmenter l’accès aux consommateurs canadiens à des prêts hypothécaires à long terme.
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Longer-term mortgages would enhance both consumer choice and financial stability, but regulatory changes are needed to help them develop into a significant part of the Canadian residential mortgage market, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute.
In “One More Case for Longer-Term Mortgages: Financial Stability,” author Michael K. Feldman notes that according to the Bank of Canada only 2 percent of all Canadian mortgages issued in 2018 were fixed-rate loans with terms of longer than five years. He further suggests that encouraging 10‑year or longer mortgages would increase options for borrowers while adding more stability to the housing market.
L’augmentation des taux d’imposition sur les revenus supérieurs n’a pas généré de recettes fiscales plus élevées de la part du décile supérieur de revenu, car ils travaillent ou investissent moins ou trouvent des façons de protéger leurs revenus des impôts. En conséquence, un allègement fiscal pour les revenus inférieurs et moyens a été financé par des déficits publics plus élevés.
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The increasing focus on the distribution of income and taxes in recent elections is one consequence of a decade of chronic slow growth in much of the OECD region of industrialized nations. After all, when the overall size of the economic pie stops growing, it is predictable that different groups in society reflexively lobby for a larger slice for themselves because that seems the only way to raise their disposable income. However, it is not appreciated enough how prioritizing distributional issues reinforces the trend of slow growth. Robert Lucas declared in 2004 that “of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution”.
Canada’s income-tax system is already highly progressive. The top 10% of income-tax filers pay over half of all income taxes. Comparing the share of the top decile’s income taxes with their income shows this measure of the relative burden of income taxes is the highest on record back to 1982. This groups includes people that few would consider high income, since the income threshold for an individual belonging to the top 10% was less than $100,000 in 2017. The distribution of income has not become more skewed over the past decade, as the share of income going to the top 10% has declined. This is contrary to the experience of most OECD countries over the past decade.
Government attempts to increase taxes on high incomes does not generate significant revenue, partly because so few people in Canada earn very high incomes and because their share of income has fallen. Tax evasion is quite rare among high incomes, as fewer than 1% avoid paying any income tax. On the contrary, the effective tax rate rises as income rises within the top decile, with the top 1% paying nearly half their income to taxes. However, high income taxes on upper-income Canadians can reinforce the decade-long trend to slower economic growth, the true source of the recent struggles of lower- and middle-income Canadians.
Depuis 2007/08, la dette nette totale a augmenté en dollars nominaux, en pourcentage de l’économie et par personne.
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Budget deficits and increasing debt have become serious fiscal challenges facing the federal and many provincial governments today. Since 2007/08, combined federal and provincial nominal net debt has grown from $837.0 billion to a projected $1.5 trillion in 2019/20.
In 2019/20, combined federal and provincial net debt is expected to equal 64.3% of the Canadian economy or $39,483 for every Canadian.
Among the provinces, Ontario has the highest combined federal-provincial debt-to-GDP ratio (75.4%), while Saskatchewan has the lowest (44.3%). Newfoundland & Labrador has the highest combined debt per person ($48,478), closely followed by Ontario ($45,891). In contrast, Prince Edward Island has the lowest debt per person in the country with $28,394.
Interest payments are a major consequence of debt accumulation. Governments must make interest payments on their debt similar to households that must pay interest on borrowing related to mortgages, vehicles, or credit card spending. Revenues directed towards interest payments mean that there is less money available for tax cuts or government programs such as health care, education, and social services.
Les choix d’investissements publics au cours des dernières décennies au Canada ont eu peu d’impact sur la productivité ainsi que sur la croissance immédiate alors que ce sont les piliers sur lesquels reposent les arguments en faveur des investissements en infrastructures.
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Governments are often encouraged to respond to economic downturns by way of discretionary spending measures intended to stimulate growth, offsetting the negative impacts of reduced private sector activity.
In recent decades, governments have placed particular emphasis on public infrastructure investment as a response to recessions.
Among the rationales for public infrastructure spending as a cyclical response is that during downturns, there is resource slack in the economy, meaning that plants and equipment, and time and human capital (people and their brains) are underused, and growth and income are lost. People’s skills may atrophy, and they move or change sectors, and future growth opportunities are lost at home.
Subscribers to this view may hold that the incremental spending keeps people and other resources gainfully employed in the near term, and longer term growth and public welfare are better than otherwise. An important aspect of this view is that the public spending, accelerated or not, may also improve private sector performance; for example, better road and other transport systems help private businesses do what they do, and so improve household incomes.
There are many difficulties with this view, however. Decision making and implementation take time, and governments have difficulty responding at the same pace at which the private sector adjusts. When governments do intervene, they may compete for human and financial resources that would otherwise be put to productive use without intervention. In other words, their actions may hinder recovery rather than encourage it. And expenditure commitments by upper levels of governments may displace those that would have been made by lower levels of government anyway, limiting potential gains. Speeding up investments, even if they are economically sensible, may borrow growth from the future, with uncertain impacts on the long run growth path.
Compounding the theoretical problems, empirical data provide dubious support for the case for discretionary public investment as a response to downturns. While some studies are supportive, many from the past few decades indicate low or no short-, medium-, or long-term gains to growth from public sector infrastructure investments. Likewise, many governments, including Canada’s, operate on the assumption that a dollar of public infrastructure investment is worth more than a dollar, in the long run, to the economy. Data suggest this is not the case—and that’s before accounting for the cost of the taxation required to fund public spending.
Even if the optimistic view of public infrastructure spending’s economic impacts were theoretically correct, problems with choice of project (which involves politics), timing, and estimates of capital costs reduce the likelihood of success, which may explain the negative empirical findings.
Taken together, this suggests that looking to discretionary public infrastructure investments as a response to economic downturns may be a poor policy choice.
États-Unis
Les choix politiques quant aux manières de percevoir des recettes auprès de la population ont des répercussions quant à l’égalité des chances pour les minorités visibles lorsque l’on prend en considération la disparité de richesse entre les populations des diverses ethnies.
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While Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is best known for his inspirational leadership in bringing down legal barriers to civil rights for Black Americans and other people of color, he also emphasized the need to reduce poverty and expand opportunity to achieve true racial justice. This MLK Day, we would do well to remember that state tax codes are a critical lever for policymakers not only to reduce poverty and expand opportunity, but to advance racial justice. States and local governments account for nearly half of all domestic public-sector spending and most of the funding for education and certain other investments important for economic health. How states and localities raise and spend revenue, including what services they finance, therefore has major implications for racial justice, especially given the extreme income and wealth disparities by race.
Aux États-Unis, la compensation militaire offre des avantages fiscaux au personnel militaire et il existe différentes approches permettant au gouvernement de modifier le système de compensation et d’avoir un impact sur le personnel.
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The Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs together expect to spend about $350 billion in 2019 on compensation and benefits for current and former military personnel. In this report, the Congressional Budget Office examines spending on military compensation— cash, current noncash benefits, and deferred benefits for enlisted personnel and officers—and its effects on recruitment, retention, and motivation.
L’État de New York verse plus d’impôts au gouvernement fédéral que d’autres États des États-Unis et reçoit moins d’investissements de la part du fédéral.
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In its third annual analysis, the Rockefeller Institute of Government has estimated the distribution of Federal Budget receipts and expenditures across the United States. This report examines where Federal funds are generated and spent, the balance-of payments differential that exists between the states, the primary explanations for those differences, and how these gaps change over time.
Aux États-Unis, l’imposition des produits du tabac doit évoluer pour tenir compte des changements du marché de manière à maintenir la source de revenus générés et surtout, de prévenir les comportements dommageables.
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This paper will discuss whether there is a rationale for taxing nicotine products (beyond any inclusion in the general sales tax) and will examine how the excise taxes of these products could be designed in a more principled manner. The first section of the paper presents a short introduction to excise taxes. Next, the paper walks through key federal proposals for taxation of nicotine and discusses different states’ strategies for taxation. The third section is a discussion of design and different risks associated with not designing principled taxes. The final part of the paper outlines the current state of taxation of vapor products and snus.
Aux États-Unis, l’exclusion de l’assurance maladie de l’employeur du revenu imposable a réduit les recettes fiscales du gouvernement et offre peu d’avantages aux familles à faible revenu.
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This brief examines major tax expenditures for health care under current law and analyzes three potential reforms to the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) premiums. We use the Tax Policy Center microsimulation model’s revamped health module as well as health insurance coverage simulations from the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Simulation Model (HIPSM).
Les États et les localités jouent un rôle important lorsque l’économie est en déclin, et le gouvernement fédéral devrait interagir davantage afin d’aider les États et les localités pendant la récession.
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Tracy Gordon, senior fellow, testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Budget for a hearing on “Why Federal Investments Matter: Stability from Congress to State Capitals.” In her testimony she notes that while states and localities are key economic players and service providers, both are severely tested roles in recessions and other economic shocks – and although federal government often steps in to help states and localities, it could do more.
Les dépenses fiscales varient d’un État à l’autre aux États-Unis puisque chaque État applique à la fois la politique fiscale fédérale et des choix de politique fiscale propre à sa juridiction.
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In this brief, we consider both personal and business income tax expenditures at the state level. We use California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia as examples. We separate tax expenditures into those that occur because of conformity with federal tax provisions and those that result from state-specific tax policies. We find that the former category accounts for between 70 and 85 percent of the total cost of combined individual and business income tax expenditures. We also find that except for certain economic development and income security provisions common to many states, state-specific tax expenditures vary considerably by state.
La Tax Cut and Jobs Act, promulguée aux États-Unis en 2017, réduit efficacement le fardeau fiscal des particuliers et des entreprises.
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The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced tax expenditures but by much less than the Tax Reform Act of 1986, relative to the size of the economy. The largest reductions in tax expenditures were for deductibility of nonbusiness state and local taxes and the preferential treatment of active foreign-source income of controlled foreign corporations. There were sizeable reductions in other tax expenditures as well including the deductibility of mortgage interest on owner occupied homes, the exclusion of employer contributions for medical insurance premiums and medical care, and the deductibility of charitable contributions. These decreases were offset in part by increases in some existing tax expenditures and the enactment of some new ones. The largest tax expenditure increases were the expansion of the child credit, the new 20‑percent deduction for income from pass-through businesses, and 100 percent bonus depreciation.
International
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Do discretionary spending cuts and tax increases hurt social well-being? To answer this question, we combine subjective well-being data covering over half a million of individuals across 13 European countries, with macroeconomic data on fiscal consolidations. We find that fiscal consolidations reduce individual well-being in the short run, especially when they are based on spending cuts. In addition, we show that accompanying monetary and exchange rate policies (disinflation, depreciations and the liberalization of capital flows) mitigate the well-being cost of fiscal consolidations. Finally, we investigate the well-being consequences of the two well-knowns expansionary fiscal consolidations episodes taking place in the 80s (in Denmark and Ireland). We find that even expansionary fiscal consolidations can have well-being costs. Our results may therefore shed some light on why some governments may choose to consolidate through taxes even at the cost of economic growth. Indeed, if spending cuts are to generate a large well-being loss, they can trigger an opposition and protest against a fiscal consolidation plan and hence making it politically costly.
Malgré ce qu’il serait intuitif de penser, l’augmentation des taxes indirectes génère plus de révolte dans la population que l’augmentation des impôts directs.
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Grâce à un vaste travail portant sur vingt pays riches, deux sociologues montrent que les révoltes fiscales sont plus causées par l’augmentation des impôts indirects que par celle des directs. Chronique de Cécile Philippe, présidente de l’IEM, publiée dans la revue Phébé.
L’OCDE a développé un outil pour les administrations fiscales permettant de s’autoévaluer quant à leur gestion de la dette.
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The tax debt management function within tax administrations plays a crucial role in ensuring the effective and fair operation of the tax system in raising revenue to fund public services. Currently across the members of the Forum on Tax Administration outstanding collectible debt is in the region of EUR 820 billion.
Fulfilling this role is not a simple task. Tax debt management personnel and processes simultaneously have to work to support taxpayers who wish to comply, including those who may be facing difficult circumstances, and to take increasingly firm action against those who disregard their tax debt or who try to evade payment. Increasingly innovative tools are being used to support this work, including enhanced e-services, greater use of automated processes, advanced analytics, behavioural insights and increased international cooperation and exchange of information.
In modern tax administration, effective tax debt management is of course not just an issue for the tax debt management function alone. Ways to minimise tax debt arising are increasingly considered across tax administration functions, including looking for opportunities to “design-out” tax debt by moving the payment of tax upstream or through greater use of real-time interventions. One might characterise these developments as a move from more reactive processes and silo working to highly proactive and joined-up approaches, including those involving other parts of government and third parties as well as the latest technology tools.
In order to assist administrations in considering how they can make improvements both in the avoidance of tax debt arising and the collection of outstanding tax debt, I was very pleased to sponsor work on the development of the Tax Debt Management Maturity Model contained in this report. This model allows administrations to self-assess their maturity, including through taking account of views outside of the tax debt management function, and to consider potential opportunities for enhancing performance. Within my own Agency, this facilitated frank and in-depth conversations about our future direction, something I know from comments received was also the case in other administrations that have used the model. I would very much encourage my colleagues in other administrations and agencies to use this new tool, designed by tax administrations for tax administrations, and to provide feedback on how it might be further developed.
Équipe de rédaction
Recherche et sélection des articles :
- Joanie Arsenault
- Julien Leblanc
- Chen Chen Ni
- Justin Roy
Coordination et édition :
- Tommy Gagné-Dubé