Tax Changes: Middle Income Impact

Federal Liberal Tax Changes Impact Middle Income Canadian Patients

Take Action. Let your MP & MPP know how this will impact their constituents.

Doctors are among the hundreds of thousands of small business owners sideswiped by the Trudeau government’s recent announcement impacting family businesses and incorporated professionals.  Proposals to tax passive investments in corporations and to eliminate income splitting have a harmful impact on incorporated physicians and also hurt their middle income staff and patients.

How the Tax Change Fallout Affects Middle Income Canadians:

1. Delivery of Patient Care Impacts: Doctors will be forced to lay off staff due to reduced after-tax dollars, many will retire earlier or work less, reduce clinic hours, and be forced to cut patient services.  Others will move to the USA.  These directly impact patients, most of whom are lower or middle income Canadians.  Seniors and the growing population will be hurt by longer waits.
2. Economic Impact: Small businesses are the economic engine of Canada’s economy.  Doctors employ an average of 4-6 middle income Canadians.  More than 175,000 middle income Canadians in Ontario alone are directly employed by doctors.  Hundreds of thousands of more middle income Canadians in Ontario are indirectly employed supporting the delivery of patient care services.  Major repercussions to the economy will result from reduced physician workforce availability and the laying off of middle-income staff working in the health care system.
3. Trust: Incorporation was approved by government in 2001 in lieu of a fee increase. Doctors followed the rules governments put in place.  Uncertainty creates instability that directly impacts patients and disrupts the balance in an already stressed health care system.
4. Timing: The Trudeau government is trying to ram through this change in the middle of summer.  Details remain scanty about the true impact to small businesses.  No analysis has been done about the impact on middle income Canadians.
5. Cost / Risk of Running a Small Business: Like all small businesses, doctors assume debt and risk building their practice that create jobs for middle income Canadians.  Doctors are unique in that they provide essential and life saving medical services to hundreds of thousands of Canadians every day.  Incorporation for doctors was intended to permit the holding of passive investment in corporations to recognise that they have no pensions, no sick days, no paid vacations, no benefits, pay both the employer and employee CPP contributions, and require funds to cover the cost of operations and specialized medical equipment.  Changing the rules will create unintended consequences for ordinary Canadians that Ottawa has not considered.

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