NDP budget amendments to oppose $2.2 billion tax on small business

OTTAWA – The NDP Critic for Small Business, Gord Johns (Courtenay-Alberni) announced today that his party would introduce amendments to reinstate the small business tax cuts that the Liberal omnibus budget bill proposes to cancel.

"During the election all three parties promised to lower the small business tax rate to 9%," said Johns. "I'm surprised the Liberals aren't suffering from whiplash given how fast they turned around on that promise."

After the NDP first proposed to reduce small business taxes from 11% to 9% in February 2015, Joe Oliver included the measure in Budget 2015. The Liberal party platform promised to keep this help to small business but the current Budget Implementation Act, Bill C-15, deletes all future reductions.

A report from the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that this broken promise will cost small businesses $2.2 billion over the next four years. It will also cost the economy an additional $300 million and a loss of 1,240 jobs by 2020-2021.

"First they break their promise on small businesses and, on top of that, they make the change in this omnibus budget bill," said NDP Finance Critic Guy Caron (Rimouski-Neigette–Témiscouata-Les Basques), "Our amendments will seek to restore the previously scheduled reductions that small business owners were counting on."