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COMPAS Poll/Survey
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Spotting business misgivings, especially in the energy sector, over the Conservative government’s new tax treatment of income trusts, the Opposition Liberals came up with a new proposal—replacing the Conservative government’s 31.5% tax on distributions with a 10% tax that would be refundable to Canadian residents. The Liberals’ proposal has not yet resonated among the CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS business panel. Asked to score the performance of the Conservatives and Liberals on income tax policy, panelists give the former a middling pass grade of 61% and the Liberals a failing grade of 35%. Asked to choose between Conservative and Liberal policy, panelists favour Conservative policy 46% to 28% with the remainder uncertain. Asked to forecast if a Liberal government would indeed carry out its proposed policy, 61% thought that this was definitely or probably unlikely while 17% thought it definitely or probably likely and 19% uncertain. Panelists’ opinions are relatively stable on the substance of the issue of income trusts. They continue to see income trusts as having been a threat to economic growth and government revenues while they remain divided in their assessment of income trusts as a way of attracting capital and about whether new government tax policy is driving control of the energy sector into the hands of foreigners. While stable, panelists’ opinions nonetheless seem to moving in the direction of polarization. On the one hand, there appears to be some growth in the size of the majority of panelists who believe that income trusts were a threat to economic growth and government revenues. On the other hand, there also appears to be a slight increase in the proportion of panelists who see the new tax policy as driving the energy sector into the hands of foreigners and who consider income trusts as an efficient way of attracting capital for investing. These are the key findings from the current web-survey of the panel of CEOs and business leaders undertaken for the Financial Post under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP. |
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