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Taxpayers in the Canadian professions have expressed their opinions, individually, and through their professional association, that they are unfairly taxed under present taxation legislation. While they are able to deduct the expenses incurred to earn their professional income, they would like to be placed on an equal tax basis with merchants and other taxpayers in the service industries who are able to incorporate and take advantage of certain tax concessions available to corporate taxpayers. The British Columbia government enacted the Professional Corporations Act in 1970 which gave the option of incorporation to all taxpayers who previously, due to either law, tradition, or their professional code of ethics were unable to incorporate. Confusion arose as to whether the Department of National Revenue would recognize professional corporations and the British Columbia Act was subsequently suspended. The Canadian taxation system has been intensively investigated in recent years and extensive amendments have been proposed by the government. To achieve equity Canadian professionals should be subject to the same tax burden as other Canadian businesses. Professional incorporation should not be permitted due to the ethical problems it would raise. Instead professionals should be given the option under the Income Tax Act of having their income taxed at corporate rates and in addition being able to take advantage of the other tax planning mechanisms presently available to corporations. Equity will thus be established between taxpayers in the professions and other Canadian businesses. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This thesis examines the impact of taxation on small businesses in Canada. It reviews the relevant economic and taxation literature from a historical perspective to provide appropriate background for policy analysis. Other nations' tax systems are also considered. The key elements of the existing system are examined in order to define the present status and to identify the strengths and weaknesses. The learned proposals of various academics, professionals and other parties are reviewed in order to seek new ideas, comments and criticism on the system. The final chapter defines the author's perceived objectives for small business tax policy and identifies some impediments to tax reform. Finally, general and specific recommendations are detailed. The author proposes that the tax definition of "small" be narrowed and that "medium-sized" businesses be given recognition in tax policy. Small business tax policy should recognize as its prime purpose the providing of financial assistance to counteract the natural prejudices that small businesses encounter in the capital markets. To achieve this, the small business tax rate should be lowered and loss provisions should remain liberal. The concept of integration with the personal tax system should attain greater integrity by changing the calculation of Part Two Tax on distributions. Various small business tax measures extant should be scrapped because they are ineffective. Temporary or specific tax incentives should be used sparingly. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

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The dissertation deals with four issues affecting Employer Sponsored Pension Plans: (a) the rationale for their existence and growth, (b) the impact of taxation on funding decisions, (c) the development of an investment model for such funds, and (d) the evaluation of the historical investment performance of 83 Canadian pension funds. The proposed investment model integrates the fund's assets with the firm's assets. It is operationalized for four Canadian firms, using a universe of 192 common stocks and eleven bond portfolios. The results indicate that the optimal pension fund is firm-specific, in terms of both asset mix and security selection. The evaluation of investment performance emphasizes the equity portfolios of the 83 Canadian funds. The results show non-superior performance by these funds; the conclusions are robust across holding periods, benchmarks, performance measures and time periods. The study has major implications for the funding and investment policies of the pension funds and their investment performance.

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