– The CFIB is Canada’s largest association of small and medium-sized businesses with 109,000 members across every sector and region.
CANADA – The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) will deliver 14,691 petition letters to MPs from business owners concerned about the increased tax burden being placed on them by Ottawa.
“As the federal Liberals convene at their caucus meeting in Kelowna and Conservative MPs in Winnipeg, independent business owners want their MPs to know that they’re being unfairly targeted. Small business owners have been slammed with increased payroll taxes, higher EI premiums, and new environmental levies – they feel like they’re being hit from all sides,” said Dan Kelly, President of CFIB.
“This is deeply troubling because it shows a growing disconnect between Ottawa and the small business community, the group this government is counting on for job-creation, innovation and economic growth.”
The federal government has also broken its election promise to lower the small business corporate tax rate to 9 per cent and recently announced new proposals that would dramatically alter the way small businesses are taxed in Canada.
If implemented, the new tax rules would restrict small business owners from sharing income with family members; hike taxes on some investments, and make it more difficult for business owners to transfer their business to the next generation.
“In my 23 years of working on behalf of small businesses, I have not seen this degree of spontaneous outrage toward any other policy,” added Kelly. “Tax experts are describing these proposals as massive changes with the potential to affect the majority of the 1.1 million small and medium-sized businesses with paid employees.”
To fight these latest proposals, CFIB is a proud member of the Coalition for Small Business Tax Fairness, a unified voice of 42 organizations representing hundreds of thousands of businesses from all sectors of the economy.
Last week, the Coalition sent Finance Minister Bill Morneau a letter asking him to take the proposals off the table while offering to work with the government to combat any abuses of small business tax provisions.
