Oakville with Ontario Chambers provided 11 recommendations for Ontario's upcoming budget. They will help business not only to manage costs, but also secure Ontario's competitive advantage.
The report calls for tax reforms, and smart spending on infrastructure and transportation. These will increase growth and benefit all regions of Ontario.
The cost of doing business in Ontario continues to increase. The largest wage increases in recent history has just occurred. Chambers recommend the return of scheduled corporate income tax rate of 10 per cent. The report also calls on the government to harmonize the Business Education Tax, as well as targeted decrease to the Employer Health tax.
“Employers in Oakville of all sizes are feeling the pressure from rising costs, and more than ever our local business communities are lacking confidence in the future of Ontario’s economy,” said John Sawyer, President, Oakville Chamber of Commerce. “The recent minimum wage and labour and employment standard changes will cost Ontario businesses an estimated $23 billion over the next two years. We need more support for business and the government’s commitments made in last year’s Fall Economic Statement are simply insufficient.”
Currently, Ontario taxes all business with a yearly income of $500,000 or less with a flat rate. Bracketed taxes give startups and SMEs more room to grow. In Ontario, 71 per cent of private sector jobs can be attributed not only to small but also medium sized business.
Chambers also encourage the government to consider how to leverage Ontario’s greatest asset - human capital.
All recommendations
- Restore efforts to standardize the Business Education Tax (BET)
- Reduce the Corporate Income Tax rate from 11.5 percent to 10 percent
- Reduce Ontario’s Marginal Income Tax rate
- Targeted reductions in the Employer Health Tax (EHT)
- Create a bracketed small business deduction and delay taxation on corporate
- income growth to overcome Ontario’s scale-up challenge
- Preserve tax exemptions of private health and dental plans
- Dedicate revenue for the Metrolinx The Big Move’s Next Wave priority projects.
- Make expanding natural gas access to rural communities a priority
- Use value-based procurement to more effectively use government dollars, inject innovation into government services, and save money in the long term
- Reform the provincial interest arbitration system to reflect the current capacity of Ontario municipalities to pay for increased service costs
- Gradually increase the “Heads and Beds Levy” on institutions to $100 per bed and then tie future yearly increases to the Consumer Price Index (CPI)