OTTAWA — Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has released her fourth budget, pre-positioning some of the key measures with a strong emphasis on housing, but also confirming a two-per-cent cap on the alcohol excise tax as Restaurants Canada advocated for along with other associations.
The key highlights for the foodservice industry in the 2024-2025 budget include:
- Carbon tax rebate: $2.5 billion will be returned directly to approximately 600,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the form of a direct payment from the Canada Revenue Agency. SMEs must file their taxes before Jul. 15, 2024 to be eligible to the rebate.
- No new measures have been announced on immigration. Based on our conversations with policymakers, upcoming discussions between the federal and provincial governments need to occur before new measures are introduced.
- No new measures have been announced to reduce payroll taxes, including reductions to the EI premiums.
To pay off some of these new programs, the government announced an increase to the inclusion rate on capital gains realized annually above $250,000 by individuals and on all capital gains realized by corporations and trusts from one-half to two-thirds. This will rake in $19.3 billion over five years of new revenues for the federal government.
“While we’re glad some of the measures we advocated for made their way into the budget, we’ll further advocate for the measures that didn’t make it through, particularly those related to the labour force shortage and payroll taxes,” says Maximilien Roy, VP, Federal & Quebec, Restaurants Canada.
