Province announces lower business tax

Roger Varley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Finance minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, MPP for Pickering-Uxbridge, brought Associate Minister of Small Business Nina Tangri to town last week so that they could announce a tax break for small businesses.

Gathered at Low's Furniture store on Brock St. W. with Mayor Dave Barton, regional councillor Bruce Garrod and Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Tangri said that across the province, small businesses make up about 98 per cent of all employer businesses and are responsible for 3.5 million jobs in the province.

She said the provincial government is helping small businesses by cutting red tape and lowering costs. In addition, Tangri said, the government is proposing to cut the small business corporate income tax rate from 3.2 per cent to 2.2 per cent as of July 1 this year.

"This cut will reduce the corporate income tax rate by 31.25 per cent," she said, "allowing 375,000 small businesses to benefit from $1.1 billion in additional tax relief."

She said the new tax cut will enable "qualifying small businesses" to realize up to $5,000 in savings each year. (Tangri did not elaborate on how a small business qualifies for the cut.) On top of that, the minister stated, the province intends to allow businesses to accelerate write-offs on a broad range of capital investments that would provide over $3.5 billion in income tax relief over four years.