The burden of Quebec's debt has changed significantly since 1960. While the province incurred very little debt in the years before the Quiet Revolution, its borrowing increased steadily from 1961 ...until the mid-1990s. By the time the trend was reversed, the Quebec government had recorded a deficit for 40 consecutive years. Having achieved one of the heaviest debt burdens, measured as a share of gross domestic product, among the Canadian provinces, and having seen two rapid downgrades of its credit rating by Moody's in the mid-1990s, fearing a further downgrade the Quebec government took steps to clean up its public finances.
After outlining the evolution of Quebec's debt since the early 1960s, this article briefly describes two statutes enacted by the government to provide greater transparency with respect to the province's finances, enabling better management of its budget and debt. These statutes are the Balanced Budget Act, passed in 1996, and the Act To Reduce the Debt and Establish the Generations Fund, passed in 2006. The article discusses the impact of the Great Recession on the province's budgetary balance and indebtedness, and shows how Quebec's financial situation has changed in terms of its fiscal balance, debt, debt interest, and credit rating. It is now possible to affirm that the two statutes adopted by the government have clearly helped to improve Quebec's fiscal position.
In effect since April 1, 2023, the tax-free first home savings account (FHSA), introduced by the federal government, aims to promote the accumulation of savings for the purchase of a first home. ...Considering the legislative provisions, the authors of this article detail the parameters of the FHSA and highlight its particularities in comparison with the parameters of other existing savings vehicles, including the tax-free savings account and the registered retirement savings plan.
En vigueur depuis le 1er avril 2023, le compte d'épargne libre d'impôt pour l'achat d'une première propriété (CÉLIAPP), instauré par le gouvernement fédéral, a pour objectif de favoriser ...l'accumulation d'épargne en vue de l'achat d'une première habitation. À la lumière des dispositions législatives, les auteurs détaillent les paramètres du CÉLIAPP et en font ressortir les particularités par comparaison avec les paramètres d'autres véhicules d'épargne existants, notamment le CÉLI et le REÉR.
Le poids de la dette du Québec a fortement évolué depuis 1960. Alors que la dette était pratiquement inexistante avant la Révolution tranquille, elle a été en augmentation quasi constante jusqu'au ...milieu des 1990, dans la foulée où le gouvernement enregistrait 40 années déficitaires consécutives. Ayant atteint l'un des plus lourds poids d'endettement mesuré en proportion du produit intérieur brut au sein des provinces canadiennes, ayant subi deux décotes rapides de sa cote de crédit par Moody's au milieu des années 1990 et craignant une autre décote, le gouvernement du Québec a posé des gestes pour assainir ses finances publiques. Après avoir tracé l'évolution de l'endettement du Québec depuis les années 1960, cet article expose succinctement les rouages de deux lois dont le Québec s'est doté afin d'offrir une plus grande transparence des finances publiques dans la gestion de son budget et sa dette. Il s'agit de la Loi sur l'équilibre budgétaire promulguée en 1996 et de la Loi sur le remboursement de la dette et instituant le Fonds des générations, votée en 2006. Par la suite, en dépit des effets de la Grande Récession sur l'atteinte de l'équilibre budgétaire et de ses répercussions sur l'endettement, l'article présentera de quelle manière a évolué la situation budgétaire et financière du Québec en matière d'équilibre budgétaire, d'endettement, d'intérêts sur la dette ou encore de la cote de crédit. Il est maintenant possible d'affirmer que les deux lois votées ont manifestement contribué à améliorer la situation du Québec.
The burden of Quebec's debt has changed significantly since 1960. While the province incurred very little debt in the years before the Quiet Revolution, its borrowing increased steadily from 1961 ...until the mid-1990s. By the time the trend was reversed, the Quebec government had recorded a deficit for 40 consecutive years. Having achieved one of the heaviest debt burdens, measured as a share of gross domestic product, among the Canadian provinces, and having seen two rapid downgrades of its credit rating by Moody's in the mid-1990s, fearing a further downgrade the Quebec government took steps to clean up its public finances. After outlining the evolution of Quebec's debt since the early 1960s, this article briefly describes two statutes enacted by the government to provide greater transparency with respect to the province's finances, enabling better management of its budget and debt. These statutes are the Balanced Budget Act, passed in 1996, and the Act To Reduce the Debt and Establish the Generations Fund, passed in 2006. The article discusses the impact of the Great Recession on the province's budgetary balance and indebtedness, and shows how Quebec's financial situation has changed in terms of its fiscal balance, debt, debt interest, and credit rating. It is now possible to affirm that the two statutes adopted by the government have clearly helped to improve Quebec's fiscal position.
In this article, Luc Godbout and Suzie St-Cerny focus on the effects of enhancing the Canada workers benefit (CWB) in 2021. More specifically, they seek to determine whether, for couples in Ontario ...and Quebec, the enhancement served to render work more rewarding (by lowering effective marginal tax rates) and to provide better income support for low-income workers (by increasing disposable income). The authors show that, while the objective of income support was achieved, the results for the objective of work incentivization were mixed, depending largely on a couple's family income level and working income split. The authors suggest how the CWB might be reformed to better fulfill its role in incentivizing work.
For almost 60 years, the Canadian Tax Foundation published an annual monograph, Finances of the Nation, and its predecessor, The National Finances. In a change of format, the 2014 Canadian Tax ...Journal introduced a new "Finances of the Nation" feature, which presents annual surveys of provincial and territorial budgets and topical articles on taxation and public expenditures in Canada. In this article, Luc Godbout and Suzie St-Cerny focus on the effects of enhancing the Canada workers benefit (CWB) in 2021. More specifically, they seek to determine whether, for couples in Ontario and Quebec, the enhancement served to render work more rewarding (by lowering effective marginal tax rates) and to provide better income support for low-income workers (by increasing disposable income). The authors show that, while the objective of income support was achieved, the results for the objective of work incentivization were mixed, depending largely on a couple's family income level and working income split. The authors suggest how the CWB might be reformed to better fulfill its role in incentivizing work. The underlying data for the Finances of the Nation monographs and for the articles in this journal will be published online in the near future.
Ces dernières années, diverses initiatives associées à des dispositifs et formes variées de revenu de base se déploient un peu partout, y compris au Québec et au Canada, et témoignent de la prise en ...compte de ce nouveau dispositif comme hypothèse de travail en regard du renouvellement des régimes de protection sociale. Le présent article vise à examiner les résultats de quelques études récentes centrées sur l'estimation des coûts d'un dispositif de revenu minimum garanti au Canada ainsi que les enjeux que sous-tendent les paramètres pris en compte dans ces études, en regard des politiques fiscales québécoise et canadienne.
For almost 60 years, the Canadian Tax Foundation published an annual monograph, Finances of the Nation, and its predecessor, The National Finances. In a change of format, the 2014 Canadian Tax ...Journal introduced a new "Finances of the Nation" feature, which presents annual surveys of provincial and territorial budgets and topical articles on taxation and public expenditures in Canada. In this article, Luc Godbout and Michael Robert-Angers assess whether the burden of taxation and the tax structures used to collect tax revenues are converging among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). After defining the concept of convergence and presenting a methodology for measuring the degree of similarity among tax systems, the authors apply that methodology to OECD data for the period 1981-2018 to examine convergence among 24 member countries and individually for each country relative to the OECD average. While the data indicate convergence for the majority of the 24 countries in terms of the burden of taxation and the way in which tax revenue is collected, Canada is not part of this trend. The underlying data for the Finances of the Nation monographs and for the articles in this journal will be published online in the near future.
Dans cet article, les auteurs constatent une détérioration de la valeur réelle des taxes spécifiques sur le carburant des provinces. Un constat similaire est dressé à l'égard de la taxe d'accise ...fédérale sur l'essence et le diésel. Pour rappel, les recettes tirées de ces taxes servent notamment au financement de l'entretien et du développement des infrastructures de transport dans une perspective utilisateur-payeur. De plus, celles-ci favorisent une modification des choix à long terme en matière de mobilité, incitant à l'utilisation de modes de transport collectifs, actifs et moins énergivores. Le recours à une formule de taxation ad valorem (utilisée par le passé par certaines provinces) pour assurer le maintien de la valeur d'un prélèvement sur les carburants ajouterait à la volatilité du prix final de ce produit. Toutefois, une indexation annuelle des actuelles taxes volumétriques, comme dans le cas des droits d'accise sur les produits du tabac et les produits alcoolisés, est envisageable. D'ailleurs une telle forme d'indexation est utilisée par certaines juridictions, dont l'Australie.
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