David Murray's Blog: Help Small Business -Canadian Jobs-Investing in Infrastructure

Sunday, April 10, 2011

2.1 Reducing the Small Business Tax Rate

We will reduce the small business tax rate from 11 per cent to nine per cent to support a sector of our economy that creates nearly half of all new jobs in Canada.

We will introduce a Job Creation Tax Credit that will provide up to $4,500 per new hire:
- Employers will receive a one-year rebate on the employer contributions for the Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance premiums for each new employee hired;
- Companies and organizations that keep a new employee for 12 months or more will be eligible for a retention bonus - a $1,000 non-refundable tax credit;
- This initiative will help create 200,000 family-supporting jobs a year.

We will extend the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance for eligible machinery and equipment acquired before 2016. This would apply to machinery and equipment for primary use in Canada for the manufacturing or processing of goods for sale or lease;
We will extend eligibility for the mineral exploration tax for an additional three years beyond March 31, 2012. This will apply to flow-through share agreements entered into on or before March 31, 2015;
We will establish FedNor as a fully independent regional development agency with a new mandate to invest exclusively in Northern Ontario. We will double the FedNor funding;
We will give tradespeople and indentured apprentices whose job sites are located at least 80kms away from their ordinary residence a tax deduction for their travel and accommodation costs.

We will strengthen the Investment Canada Act by:
- Reducing, the threshold for investments subject to review to $100 million;
- Providing explicit, transparent criteria for the “net benefit to Canada” test, with an emphasis on the impact of foreign investment on communities, jobs, pensions and new capital investments;
- Requiring public hearings that allow for community input into decisions on both the assessment of “net benefit” and conditions to apply to the investment;
- Ensuring public disclosure and enforcement of all commitments undertaken by potential investors.

We will keep Canada’s corporate tax rate competitive by ensuring that our combined federal/provincial Corporate Income Tax rate is always below the United States’ federal corporate tax rate.