Kevin Milligan

On April 30th, 2021 I completed my Interchange appointment to the Privy Council Office. I am now back at the Vancouver School of Economics full time.

On June 15th, 2020 I started as Special Advisor (Economic Recovery) to the Clerk of the Privy Council. I look forward to the challenge of helping in the effort to spur a vigorous and inclusive economic recovery.

This position is with the Privy Council Office, arranged through an Interchange Agreement between the Government of Canada and UBC.

The Privy Council Office mandate is to “[provide] professional non-partisan advice to the Prime Minister, portfolio ministers, Cabinet and Cabinet committees on matters of national and international importance.”

I will return to UBC full-time on January 1, 2021.

[UPDATE: We have renewed the Interchange Agreement to the end of April, 2021. I look forward to returning full time to UBC in May.]

I will not be available for media comment during this time period.

My Curriculum Vita is available here.

I can be contacted at kevin.milligan@pco-bcp.gc.ca.

For information about the appointment, please contact PCO Media Centre at mediacentre@pco-bcp.gc.ca.

I’m appearing at the House of Commons Finance Committee at 1pm PDT on Friday April 24th. The topic is “GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: Panel on Students, Workers and Unemployed.”

My comments are below:

—-

Thank you for the invitation to appear.

My brief comments will first address some data, followed by thoughts about the future.

Data

I analyzed the March Labour Force Survey with economists Tammy Schirle and Mikal Skuterud for the C.D. Howe Institute. Already in March at the beginning of this crisis we can see a huge impact of COVID on work.

More than 2.2 million Canadians shifted out of work. But it is important to emphasize that you can’t just look at unemployment. Some did move to unemployment. But even more shifted to some kind of furlough; keeping their job but with zero hours worked. Overall, hours worked dropped by 18 percent in March compared to February. The hardest hit occupations were in cultural work, education, and food service. It was low-wage earners, women, and young people. For example, women earning less than $15 an hour saw a drop in total hours worked of 30%.

That was in March. What’s happening now?

The answer is hard to know because we lack timely data. Large business, small business, charities and families are making big decisions about their futures every day, and they need fresh data in this fast-moving economy.

Statistics Canada has reacted effectively by expediting GDP numbers and putting out innovative and timely data products. In addition, we now have administrative data on CERB applications three times a week—so we know that 6.82 million Canadians have now applied for CERB.

But we need more data to guide Canadians with crucial decisions:

• provincial breakdowns of CERB administrative data
• When available, administrative data on other emergency programs like CEWS, CEBA, and CESB.

The future

To close, I emphasize that even in the middle of this emergency, we need to keep our eyes on a plan for the future.

We need to consider how the emergency benefits we are now designing and implementing will serve Canadians in the partially-open economy that may be with us for some time.

We need to give employees and workers clear signals about how we will transition away from the emergency benefits at the appropriate time. Clear advance signals about the transition are needed so that everyone can plan.

Finally, we need to ensure we learn lessons from this crisis about how we support unemployed workers, and how we support our public service who deliver the programs that are needed when a crisis hits.

Thank you.

[PDF version of this letter]

My conflict disclosure is here.

This is the text of a letter written by me to Liberal policy advisor Tyler Meredith.

Re: Basic Personal Amount

Tyler Meredith
Liberal Party of Canada
tmeredith@liberal.ca

September 21, 2019

Dear Mr. Meredith,

I am writing about your request to provide information about the proposal by the Liberal Party of Canada to expand the Basic Personal Amount. Under your proposal, the Basic Personal Amount will increase between the 2020 and 2023 tax years to $15,000. In this letter, I am happy to provide the information requested about your proposal.

As a professor at a public university, engaging with public policy is part of my job. In this role over the past four years, I have provided advice to a Member of Parliament (CPC) on his Private Members Bill, the Government of British Columbia (NDP) on tax policy and poverty initiatives, and to the Government of Canada (LPC) on several matters of public policy.

In this same spirit, I hope the analysis I provide will better inform the voting public as it considers policy options during the current election campaign. I invite you to quote this letter in your public communications, and I will make this letter available to the public on my website as well.

During this election cycle, the Parliamentary Budget Office is providing cost estimates for policy proposals. I fully support this development, but the PBO is limited to providing total cost estimates and is not providing estimates of the impacts on different populations of Canadians. I therefore view the information I am providing with this letter to be complementary to the fine work of the Parliamentary Budget Office.

My efforts here should not be interpreted as an endorsement of your party or its proposal by me, my employer, or any institution to which I am affiliated.

The main finding of my analysis is that the proposal to expand the Basic Personal Amount will remove about 690,000 Canadians from paying federal income taxes by 2023, and lift 38,000 Canadians above the poverty line (MBM).

I also show that Canadians from all family income groups benefit from this tax cut and provide a comparison to the recent tax cut proposed by the Conservative Party of Canada.

These estimates are offered with a moderate level of uncertainty. The uncertainty arises from assumptions about the future incomes of Canadian out to 2023. More detail on the findings and the methodology are in the attached memo.

It has been my pleasure to assist you with this request. I sincerely hope it helps to inform the public debate during this election campaign.

Yours truly,

Kevin Milligan
Professor of Economics
UBC Vancouver School of Economics

Details and Methodology

The proposal is to increase the Basic Personal Amount and the Spouse or Common-Law Partner Amount according to the schedule set out below. It is phased out over the 2^nd highest tax bracket according to individual income.

The ‘Default BPA’ is the default path from 2020-2023. The ‘proposed BPA’ is the proposed schedule you provided me. The BPA gives rise to a 15% credit and is non-refundable. These are not changed under your proposal.

My analysis makes use of two sources of information:

• The Canadian Income Survey microdata.
• The Canadian Tax and Credit Simulator (CTaCS).

I project forward to future years the pattern of incomes using the Canadian Income Survey. Then, these incomes are processed through the Canadian Tax and Credit Simulator to generate an estimated tax liability, including all federal and provincial taxes and benefits. This process is repeated first under the status quo and then with the proposed policy in place. The change in taxes is used to assess the size of the tax cut and whether any federal income tax is owing. After-tax income is then used to assess each individual and family’s position relative to the poverty line.

The poverty concept used for this analysis is the Market Basket Measure, which has recently been adopted as the official poverty indicator for Canada.

The estimates do not account for behavioural response.

The results are below in Table 1 and Table 2.

[PDF version of this letter]

My conflict disclosure is here.

This is a letter written by me to Liberal policy advisor Tyler Meredith.

Re: Old Age Security

Tyler Meredith
Liberal Party of Canada
tmeredith@liberal.ca

September 16, 2019

Dear Mr. Meredith,

I am writing about your request to provide information about the proposal by the Liberal Party of Canada to expand Old Age Security benefits. Under your proposal, basic Old Age Security benefits would increase by 10% for those age 75 and older starting in 2020. In this letter, I am happy to provide the information requested about your proposal.

As a professor at a public university, engaging with public policy is part of my job. In this role over the past four years, I have provided advice to a Member of Parliament (CPC) on his Private Members Bill, the Government of British Columbia (NDP) on tax policy and poverty initiatives, and to the Government of Canada (LPC) on several matters of public policy.

In this same spirit, I hope the analysis I provide will better inform the voting public as it considers policy options during the current election campaign. I invite you to quote this letter in your public communications, and I will make this letter available to the public on my website as well.

During this election cycle, the Parliamentary Budget Office is providing cost estimates for policy proposals. I fully support this development, but the PBO is limited to providing total cost estimates and is not providing estimates of the impacts on different populations of Canadians. I therefore view the information I am providing with this letter to be complementary to the fine work of the Parliamentary Budget Office.

My efforts here should not be interpreted as an endorsement of your party or its proposal by me, my employer, or any institution to which I am affiliated.

The main finding of my analysis is that the proposal to expand Old Age Security benefits by 10% for recipients age 75 and older will lead to a reduction in MBM poverty in this age group of 14.5%. In 2020 this corresponds to 10,500 individuals, growing to 21,000 by 2024. Approximately two thirds are women.

These estimates are offered with a moderate level of uncertainty. The uncertainty arises from assumptions about the future incomes of Canadian seniors out to 2024. More detail on the findings and the methodology are in the attached memo.

It has been my pleasure to assist you with this request. I sincerely hope it helps to inform the public debate during this election campaign.

Yours truly,

Kevin Milligan
Professor of Economics
UBC Vancouver School of Economics

Details and Methodology

The policy is proposed to begin on July 1, 2020. Basic Old Age Security benefits will rise by 10% on that date for eligible Canadian recipients age 75 and higher. No other changes are contemplated.

My analysis makes use of three sources of information:

• The Canadian Income Survey microdata.
• The Canadian Tax and Credit Simulator (CTaCS 2019-1).
• Demographic projections from CANSIM.

I project forward to future years the pattern of incomes using the Canadian Income Survey. Then, these incomes are processed through the Canadian Tax and Credit Simulator to generate an estimated tax liability, including all federal and provincial taxes and benefits. This process is repeated first under the status quo and then with the policy in place. The change in after-tax income is then used to assess each individual’s position relative to the poverty line.

The poverty concept used for this analysis is the Market Basket Measure, which has recently been adopted as the official poverty indicator for Canada.

The estimates do not account for behavioural response. Labour market participation at these ages is very low, so no impact on labour markets were modeled.

This 2020-2024 time period shows substantial population growth in the over-75 age group because the baby boom generation arrives at this age in this time period. I rely on CANSIM demographic projections (Table 17-10-0057-01, medium growth scenario) to obtain population estimates.

The results are below in Table 1.

Kevin Milligan
Professor of Economics
UBC Vancouver School of Economics

kevin.milligan@ubc.ca

May 31, 2019

Discussion of the papers in the CEA session “Promises and Prospects for a Guaranteed Basic Income in Canada / Promesses et perspectives d’un revenu de base garanti au Canada”

Basic Income: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Thanks to the presenters and to Kourtney Koebel and Diane Pohler for organizing this session.

I’ve organized my discussion of the presentations into three parts: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good:

Let’s start with the good.

The recent wave of advocacy and research on basic income has brought forward several things that I think are good, and you can see these good aspects in these papers.

Foremost in my mind is a focus on poverty alleviation; ensuring that those who are struggling have sufficient income to meet their reasonable needs and participate fully in society. You can see this focus on poverty alleviation in all four of the presentations here today.

Another good aspect is figuring out ways to consolidate and rationalize our existing tax and transfer system into more coherent structures. There is duplication and redundancy. This complexity and overlap can lead to unintended-harsh incentives and renders our system opaque to those who don’t have accountants to sort out the problems. Moreover, theoretical models of optimal income taxation often treat the tax and transfer system as a unified structure, so thinking about how to turn our system more into a negative income tax-like system can help to fill in the gap between theory and reality. All of the empirical work presented today does this in various ways, and it’s a solid contribution.

Finally, providing hard numbers is good. Having numbers on the structure of potential basic income programs and what they would cost is crucial for the public to evaluate whether they are worthwhile. The presentations today are all based on hard numbers, and these numbers that help to move the policy discussion onto firmer ground. That is good!

The Bad:

Many models of basic income foresee the basic income displacing social assistance, pensions, unemployment insurance, and other income supports. The idea is to take all of these programs and put them in one big basic income bucket. In the US, I’ve seen the Medicare and Medicaid health insurance expenditures lumped into the basic income bucket too.

The basic income models presented here have been much more of the Negative Income Tax style, and the Boadway Cuff and Koebel paper explicitly discusses the role of straight transfers vs social insurance, arguing that both should likely coexist beside each other.

I agree with BCK on this, because models of basic income that aim to put all social insurance programs into one basic income bucket are bad.

Why are they bad? For two reasons.

First, the different programs we have respond to different risks and different needs. It is hard to imagine one basic income bucket meeting all these needs. Moreover, if you tried to replace them all with one program and missed the mark, we’d soon enough see these programs sprouting anew to respond to the basic needs and demands of the population for social insurance. When observing the proliferation of programs, it may be wise to consider that at least some of that multitude exist for solid reasons; separate reasons.

The second reason why putting social insurance in the basic income bucket is bad is because insurance programs pay out based on need. You get EI if you are unemployed. You get disability supports if you are disabled. You get GIS if your life lasted longer than your savings. It is a very bad idea to replace these programs with a straight lump-sum transfer across all citizens independent of need—which is the basic premise of basic income.

To understand why, consider disability payments under provincial Social Assistance programs. For most (if not all) provinces, the disability component of SA has more recipients than the regular SA program. Right now, if you are a low-income kid with a disability, you can get a wheelchair if you need it. With a Rawlsian mindset, we should imagine that could happen to any of us or any of our kids. I think we want a world where a low-income disabled kid can get a wheelchair.

If you instead cancelled all Social Assistance payments and put them in a basic income bucket, that kid doesn’t get a wheelchair. He gets a cheque for his per-capita share of a wheelchair. He doesn’t need that cheque, he needs a wheelchair.

Cancelling social insurance to fund a basic income is the privatization of social insurance and would be a very bad move.

To repeat, the basic income models presented here today were not of this type, but many other basic income proposals do try to replace social insurance programs in order to fund them, and in my view such efforts should be treated with high skepticism.

The Ugly

I think there are three basic ugly truths that we must confront about any basic income schemes.

The first is that the numbers for basic income schemes are tough. And by ‘tough’ I mean that almost surely impossible to make work.  This is very clear in the numbers presented here today. We see large increases in transfers to the bottom three or four deciles, paid for by very large increases in taxes in the middle and upper deciles.

There is some appetite to ‘soak the rich’ to be sure, but these proposals presented today are funded more by heavily increasing taxes on the middle class than the rich. I think it is very hard to argue that a basic income program funded by cutting the incomes of families making only $55K a year by 5% or more is a good deal.

I don’t think this is the fault of the capable and smart researchers who wrote the papers we saw presented today. I think the task—to fund a massive increase in transfers to low income families without a massive increase in taxes—is almost impossible.

This doesn’t mean anyone should stop advocating for a massive increase in transfers to low income families. It does mean that calling the transfer program a ‘basic income’ doesn’t allow you to avoid the ugly math.

The second ugly truth is that designing and administering a basic income scheme is really, really hard.

The negative income tax proposals we saw today would all be delivered through the income tax system. That’s a good and feasible way to do things, and I think that is likely the best way to go.

But let’s be clear, there are challenges with using the tax system. There are nonfilers who would slip through the system. There is also timing: if you suffer a negative income shock today on May 31, 2019, you wouldn’t see any change to your basic income cheque until after your next tax filing; so perhaps one year later.

Another ugly design challenge is the definition of the family unit. This may strike you as trivial—and I didn’t see serious consideration of it in the papers presented today. But it is actually a central and vexing challenge for basic income models.

As I understand the proposals today, they would be focused on the tax-filing unit, being the parents and any under-18 children. But, families and people live in a variety of ways. If you focus on the tax-filing unit, that means that a 19 year old living with their parents would be an independent family unit for the purposes of the basic income.

If you are going to ask families in the 5^th decile to take a 5% cut to their incomes in order to pay for a basic income, I think many of those 5^th decile families would be interested to know if the recipients of the basic income is going to be 19 year olds living with their parents. This is not trivial—I ran some microdata simulations a few years ago suggesting that Ontario’s basic income pilot would pay out between half and 2/3rds of its funds to over-18 adults living with their parents. Maybe that’s a good idea—but also maybe many voters would find that to be a tough sell.

The third ugly truth is that the ‘pilot’ approach to learning about basic income is likely a dead end. It’s a dead end because what we learn from them is very limited compared to the cost. In Wayne Simpson’s presentation, note that sample sizes on many of these pilots. One has only 100 families! Why are the sample sizes so small? It’s because the pilot programs are very expensive. $1000/month for two years would cost $24 million for just 1000 people. And it is empirically very hard to learn much from just 1000 people. I don’t think more basic income pilots are going to yield very much useful information.

The path forward

Let me end on a more positive note. Here are four things I think would be a productive focus for research and policy advocacy.

First, we should continue the focus on poverty alleviation. This means targeting transfers based on family income and family situation.  It also means that we must continue to make the case that poverty alleviation is important.

Second, we should continue the work on NIT-style consolidation of credits and taxes into a more coherent system. The resulting amounts may not be enough to fully fund a ‘basic income’, but it is still worth doing.

Third, we should make use of quasi-experimental and non-experimental evidence where available to learn about the impact of income transfers.

Fourth, if we are doing experiments, they should be tightly focused on clear questions. They should aim to build a base of evidence brick by brick and not try to do everything at once.

Thank you and I look forward to the discussion.

Kevin Milligan
Professor of Economics, University of British Columbia
Testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance: Bill C-97
Opening Statement, via video conference
May 9, 2019

Merci pour m’avoir invité.  Je m’appelle Kevin Milligan, et je suis professeur d’économie a l’Université de la Colombie-Britannique ici à Vancouver.

I am going to direct my remarks to changes to the Guaranteed Income Supplement that are proposed in Bill C-97.

The GIS was introduced in 1967 and has grown into a vital part of Canada’s income security system for seniors. The GIS is focused on lower-income seniors, with over two million now receiving this benefit—about one third of all seniors.

The GIS is vital to poverty alleviation among seniors. Some arrive at retirement with too little income—maybe unemployment or health problems made it difficult to save while younger. Others start retirement on a solid footing, but end up outliving their savings and risk falling into poverty at older ages. In both these cases, the GIS tops up the incomes of low-income seniors and allows them to afford a dignified retirement.

A challenge for the GIS arises from how it is phased out with income. As someone earns more income, the GIS is reduced at rates of 50 and even 75 cents on the dollar. For low-income seniors who want to work after age 65, these phase-out rates impose a very high effective tax rate on earned income.

Many seniors are happy to retire from the workplace; others are unable to work because of health or family needs. For those Canadians, the GIS is there for them to top up their incomes.

However, some older Canadians want to continue working. Perhaps a new Canadian who arrived in Canada at middle age and wants to build more savings before retiring. Perhaps someone who wants to continue to ply a trade part-time. For those Canadians who want to work, the phase out rates in the GIS can present a barrier to work.

In Budget 2008, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty established an exemption of $3,500 for earned income in the GIS. This exemption currently allows seniors to earn up to $3,500 per year before starting to lose their GIS payments through the phaseout.

In Budget 2019 and here in Bill C-97, Finance Minister Bill Morneau has proposed to extend and enhance this GIS exemption in three important ways.

• The basic exemption is proposed to move to $5,000 per person.
• A partial exemption will be applied on the next $10,000 of earnings
• Self-employment earnings will now qualify for the exemption.

Combined, this means that a senior earning around $20,000 will now be further ahead by almost $3,000 per year.

In my assessment, this measure is well designed and should be supported for two main reasons.

First, the GIS is left in place for those who need it most—seniors at highest risk for poverty, and this proposal leaves every dollar now going to needy seniors in place.

Second, for those able to work, this measure allows them to keep more of their earnings and build a more secure income base for their own future retirement.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I look forward to your questions.

Script for Presentation to Canada 2020 Tax Event
Monday October 22
Ottawa ON
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Does Canada need a tax commission?
——–

Let’s start with some history.

With Order in Council #1334, dated 25th September 1962, the Progressive Conservative government of John Diefenbaker nominated Kenneth Carter to be chairman of a Royal Commission on Taxation.

The Carter Commission had a broad 7-point mandate to study the impact of all forms of taxes on all aspects of the economy, and make recommendations to “achieve greater clarity, simplicity and effectiveness in the tax laws or their administration.”

In December 1966–four years later–the Commission turned over its report. It was made public in February 1967.

The government of the day–now Liberal–took two years to formulate a response, which eventually came out as a White Paper in 1969.

After two years of contentious debate the 1971 Budget introduced the final reforms, which were then implemented in 1972.

1962 to 1972. Ten years after the Royal Commission on Taxation started its work.

That was “Carter Commission 1.0”.

The last major tax reform in Canada was in 1988. Since then, we’ve seen incremental reforms and ad hoc responses to periodic challenges.

The question on the table today is this: Do we need a new Royal Commission on Taxation–a Carter Commission 2.0? Or should we continue with ad hoc incremental responses to tax issues that arise?

My answer is a hesitant and conditional ‘yes’ to Carter 2.0, but I have some serious reservations about what could be achieved.

Here’s how I’ll organize my thoughts.

I’ll start with three opportunities we have to do some good with a deep study of the tax system.

Following that, I’ll outline three areas where some magical thinking has raised false hopes about what a Carter 2.0 could deliver.

I’ll close with some thoughts on the path forward and hopefully we’ll have lots of time for questions.

**
Three opportunities
**

1) Framework

A tax commission can provide a framework; a blueprint for legislators to follow. A coherent framework provides two main benefits.

First, it gives guidance to government; a plan or a roadmap to handle situations and problems that arise. Rather than an ad hoc approach to each problem; problems are assessed systematically against an agreed-upon framework. Plan beats no plan.

Second, it gives support to politicians for tough decisions. Done well, a panel of outside and independent experts can give credibility and support to politicians by laying out principles and facts.

Think of the criminal justice system, as an analogy. From time to time, a particularly nasty criminal case may arise and generate large political pressure. A minister can withstand this pressure by leaning heavily on the principles of our justice system—principles like “everyone is entitled to a fair trial.”

A Carter 2.0 could contribute by providing an updated set of principles for our tax system, allowing a minister to draw some strength for tough tax decisions.

2) Technicalities

The second area where outside tax experts can contribute is in finding durable solutions to tax problems. This requires hard work by people who know the accounting and legal challenges and have deep experience with current practices. This avoids solutions that look good on the chalkboard but fail in implementation because of real-world details.

A tax commission could potentially contribute by bringing together experts to find solutions that work on the chalkboard *and* out in the real world.

3) Comprehensive

A great advantage of the Carter Commission approach was its comprehensiveness. It studied everything to do with taxation. This brings two advantages.

First, there are natural interactions of different parts of the tax system, and a comprehensive approach can incorporate these interactions. Dividends is a clear example–how do we tax funds as they flow from corporations to individuals; from profit to pocket?

Second, assessing fairness of the tax system is better done comprehensively. Some parts of the tax system matter a lot for efficiency and growth, while other parts are better at delivering balance and fairness to tax burdens. A comprehensive approach allows us to aim for both efficiency and fairness at the same time.

So, those are the three opportunities that I see could be delivered by a new study of the tax system: a coherent framework for reform, advice from the best technical experts, and a comprehensive viewpoint.

**
Three false hopes
**

So, I do agree a broad tax commission could do some good.

But, I’m more skeptical than some others about a Carter 2.0–I think the case can be oversold, and some magical thinking about Carter 2.0 is based on false hopes.

In particular, here are the three false hopes I see.

1) Timing

The first false hope is timing. If you really wanted to do a comprehensive process like in the 1960s, you’d need at least two years for research and writing. Then you’d need to spend a year or two in consultations and preparing legislation. I don’t know if we’d need the ten years taken by Carter 1.0 nose-to-tail, but you’d be very hard pressed to do a Carter 2.0 in under four years. If you think I’m wrong, show me your proposed timeline.

We have issues that require a fairly quick response–like the US tax reform. Many have already been complaining that Mr. Morneau has been too slow by taking 10 months to formulate his response to the US situation.

I don’t know if 10 months is too long, but I don’t think we can wait four or five years without touching anything.

2) Big-bang implementation

The second false hope is that we can have a Carter 2.0 followed by some kind of ‘big bang’ all-at-once tax reform.

Just think of the complications of implementation that arose in the private corporation tax reform one year ago.

What happens to the estate of someone who died 10 months before the reform was announced and was in the middle of a multi-million dollar set of transactions to pass business assets onto her heirs? You need to think through all such contingencies in advance and design fair and transparent transition rules. A neutral observer would say that this part of the private corporation tax reform was bungled last year.

Now imagine doing it all at once. Personal taxes. GST. Corporations big and small. The implementation complexities of doing all this at once don’t cancel each other out. The complications multiply. Exponentially.

So, I have strong concerns about our capacity to implement a ‘big bang’ reform because of the complexity of designing transition for so much at once.

3) Avoid politics

Finally, a third false hope is that a Carter 2.0 could avoid politics. As I said earlier, an external tax report can fortify the resolve of cabinet and help push through political opposition. I think that’s right. But politics cannot be completely avoided.

But let me offer two counterpoints

First, the political opposition to the *implementation* of Carter 1.0 through the 1969 White Paper was immense. This intense opposition spawned organizations that have lasted to this day–both the National Citizens Coalition and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business had their origins in the 1969-1971 tax wars.

After going through the political ringer, there were only threads left of the vision of the original 1967 report. And, for those who care about elections, you’ll note the Liberals were reduced to a minority in 1972.

I think the study of facts and identification of key challenges is something that an external panel can contribute. But the final reform choices and the implementation will always be political.

Second, the mandate of a Carter 2.0 is never going to be free from politics. For example, Prime Minister Trudeau has made clear from the start that the core of his economic vision is using government to push back against economic inequality. Another prime minister may have different core views. That’s fine–that’s democracy.

Me, I’d expect these core views of any prime minister to appear in the mandate of any commission. I sometimes think tax commission advocates have a dream that a tax commission will lead the Prime Minister to ‘see the light’ and change his core views. From my perspective, anyone hoping that this cabinet will do a 180 and go full “Ayn Rand” to make tax cuts for high earners its top priority is bound to be disappointed.

More generally, while a Carter 2.0 can help with the political side of taxation, it won’t make the politics of taxation evaporate.

***
A path forward
***

As I have discussed today, I see a lot of positive potential in a tax commission. But I think we have to be realistic in what we hope it can achieve. Here’s what I see as the best path forward.

I think the tax reform era of 1962-1972 should be separated into two different zones. The first zone was developing a ‘big picture’ structure for how a modern tax system should work. This was based on research, consultation, and deep thinking about how taxes affect fairness and economic growth. It identified challenges and provided ‘big picture’ responses to those challenges.

The second zone was ‘implementation’. This was partially tackled by the Carter Commission, which did go deep into very specific recommendations. But it also carried through to the 1969 White paper and the eventual 1971 tax legislation.

In my view, if we are going to have a Carter 2.0, it should look a lot more like Zone 1–‘big picture’ research, identification of challenges, and scoping of potential responses. I could see a lot of good coming out of it. Imagine putting together a set of diverse commissioners that looked like the recent NAFTA advisory council put together by Minister Freeland, including everyone from former Conservative cabinet ministers to leaders from organized labour.

Of course, a tax commission should have tax experts as commissioners not politicians. But a report from the tax equivalent of that kind of diverse commission could provide guidance and a roadmap for future tax reforms.

That’s Zone 1. But what about Zone 2–implementation? To me, this is the danger zone. I think implementation is best handled outside a Royal Commission framework. This might take the form of ad hoc technical committees that can address and resolve issues in a reasonable amount of time.

So, to conclude: some good could come out of a tax commission. It could identify problems and challenges and provide a roadmap to the future. I do think we need to be careful not to expect too much magic though–taxes will not and should not be free of politics.

I’m happy to take your questions.

Inclusive Corporate Tax Reform

Kevin Milligan
Vancouver School of Economics
University of British Columbia

Notes prepared for Northern Policy Institute “State of the North” conference
September 26, 2018
North Bay, ON

Powerpoint slides here.
PDF of notes here.

Why do we have corporations? Why does society have corporations? What is their function; the benefit they give us?

We don’t have corporations to provide tax shelters for the rich.

We don’t have corporations to act as a cash cow for the government.

We don’t have corporations to employ lawyers, nor accountants, nor tax collectors.

Now, some of these things may be side-products of the way corporations work in today’s society, but none of these things is at the core of why corporations exist.

A main reason we have corporations, at the core, is to facilitate productive investment in the future capacity of our economy.

We want to ensure a vibrant and flourishing economy for our children. To reach that goal, we need investment in the productive capacity of our economy.

Now, when we have ample investment, that’s clearly good for business owners. More investment means more economic activity, more profit, and more GDP.

In principle, more investment is also good for workers. In a competitive and well-functioning labour market, we expect workers get higher pay when they have access to the best machines, equipment, tools, and software.

As investment grows, GDP is going to grow. And we might hope we’ll see wages growing too.

But over the last generation, this fundamental economic relationship has fundamentally failed to deliver for average workers in Ontario.

CANSIM Table 11-10-0239-01, median employment income            

In this chart, I show median inflation-adjusted employment earnings for Ontario workers. If you line up everyone with employment income and pick the person in the middle of the lineup, that’s what I’m graphing here. This is the earnings for the typical Ontario worker.

There’s no cherry-picking of the data here. If you separate out men and women, you’d see women growing a bit and men shrinking a bit. If you look at full-time full-year workers, the story is pretty much the same.

For forty years, employment earnings has barely moved in Ontario.

GDP data: Table: 36-10-0222-01 (formerly CANSIM 384-0038)                  

If you now plot Ontario’s GDP in the same figure, you can see that the economy has more than doubled in size over this period.

The economy has doubled in size, but the typical worker is not getting any further ahead.

What’s going on?

Economists have been studying this stagnation of earnings around the world, looking at factors like the pace of technological change, shifts in trade patterns, the slide in unionization, and a decrease of employee bargaining power. The exact reason for the stagnation isn’t the focus of my talk here today.

The point I want to draw out here is simply this: in a global economy that’s throwing tough challenges at Canadian workers, the very last thing we want to do is to make it hard for Canadian firms to invest in their companies, their future, and their workers.

We need that investment to boost our companies and our economy; to give us a fighting chance against the global trends pushing down on Canadian workers.

On this front, our tax system plays a role. The environment for investment depends in part on how we tax the return to investment by corporations.

But if you’re a typical worker and you look at this chart, you might find it hard to get energized for reforming corporate taxes if all that happens is GDP goes up without any boost for average workers.

You may be wondering why we should care what median-earning workers think about corporate tax reform and economic growth.

I think everyone should care, and here’s why.

There are many Canadians who care a lot about inequality: what’s happening to those who are struggling economically, and also those in the middle of the pack.

Many understand that some people through no fault of their own are held back from reaching their potential. Factors like discrimination, lost schooling opportunities, and plain bad luck can keep many people from achieving their highest potential.

For people who focus a lot on inequality, you can naturally see how they might want to understand how corporate tax reform affects everyone in the economy.

But not everyone thinks about inequality in the same way. Our economy works best when hard work is rewarded, and some part of the inequality of economic rewards may reflect inequality in economic effort.

That’s fine—people have different views about inequality.  I can tell you I know some people who don’t care at all about inequality. They think Robin Hood belongs in fairy tale books, socialists belong in Venezuela, and every person should eat only what he or she can kill.

But I think these folks—even the ‘eat what you kill’ capitalists—should care about the overall impact of a pro-growth corporate tax reform too.

The reason is that in a democracy, if you don’t keep your growth policy focused on middle workers, then you’re not going to get a chance to implement your policy. You’re just not going to get much support for reforms if people in the middle feel they’re left out.

Again, just look at the chart. Some people argue that if a tax reform increases GDP, we can just let the rest sort itself out.

Forty years of experience in Ontario says that’s not enough anymore.

If your argument for a corporate tax reform is that it boosts GDP and you ignore everything else, many Canadians will respond that this isn’t enough anymore.

We do need investment. We do need growth. And we do need to improve our tax system as part of that effort. But how?

How do we construct a policy of tax reform that has a better shot at helping all workers?

Here’s what I think: we need to embrace Inclusive Corporate Tax Reform. There are two elements to Inclusive Corporate Tax Reform.

The first is to keep the focus on investment. Remember, the reason we have corporations is to facilitate productive investment in the capacity of our economy.

It just makes sense to align our tax system with the core reason we have corporations in the first place: investment.

Investment at the centre of corporate tax reform means that we focus less on rewarding profits from past investments, and emphasize tax benefits for investing more for the future.

Investment at the centre of corporate tax reform means we work hard to shut down tax planning structures that waste energy and talent on accounting tricks, and refocus that energy on delivering efficient investment in productive capacity.

Workers know that a company that is growing and investing in its future will provide the best shot for the workers to thrive in the future too.

Restoring investment to the centre of the tax system is the best way to align our tax system with what we want corporations to do for our economy.

The first element of Inclusive Corporate Tax Reform is investment.

The second is to be sure to include everyone.

If we cut the tax burden on the corporate sector, that revenue will need to be made up somewhere else.

An inclusive approach to corporate tax reform doesn’t ignore this need to fund the tax cuts; instead the need to fund the tax cuts is embraced.

This means paying attention to who pays how much tax, and ensuring that the tax reform doesn’t tilt the system to put more burden on the people in the middle.

You can make tax reform inclusive by enforcing existing rules on tax avoidance and tax evasion, while simplifying and tightening administration.

You can make tax reform inclusive by adjusting the tax system to ensure that the progressivity of the tax system—the tax balance between rich and poor—isn’t thrown askew by any tax reform.

An Inclusive Corporate Tax Reform pays attention to ‘who pays what’ in our tax system, so that everyone can be included and have a stake in the success of our economy.

These are the two elements of an Inclusive Corporate Tax Reform. Investment, and including everyone.

In my view, we should assess potential corporate tax reforms against these two criteria because looking at GDP alone simply isn’t enough anymore.

But what kind of policies fit the bill? Here are a few ideas.

Right now, when a company invests, the investment is written off over many years, so the tax benefit is spread out.

With full expensing, the tax benefit is front-loaded. This kind of structure can maximize the boost given by our tax system to investment.

But how would we make up the revenue? Here are two ideas.

We could increase the capital gains inclusion rate from today’s 50% to 2/3rds. Right now, the capital gains rate is out of whack with how dividends are taxed, giving too much of a break for the liquidation of corporate cash into corporate stock buybacks. By restoring the balance of capital gains with dividend taxation, we can remove this mis-incentive and also raise more revenue.

Another idea is to revisit the full exemption of capital gains on housing. In other countries like the US, the capital gains exemption for the principal residence is capped. In Canada, it is completely uncapped, creating a major tax loophole for those with millions of dollars to speculate on housing.  Canada should look at capping this tax loophole.

Now, maybe you don’t like these ideas. That’s fine—I won’t push these particular ideas too hard here today.

But what I do ask you to consider is the idea of Inclusive Corporate Tax Reform and putting investment and inclusivity at the centre of our tax reform discussion.

Too many tax reform proposals anchor their arguments in boosts to GDP. If you want a reform that is better for all Canadians—and also has a better chance of becoming law—I think we need to take Inclusive Tax Reform seriously.

Thank you!

Notes prepared for House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance
April 30, 2018
Kevin Milligan
Professor of Economics
Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia

Topic: Bill C-74. “An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures.”

(PDF copy of these notes can be downloaded here.)

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My name is Kevin Milligan and I am a Professor of Economics at UBC’s Vancouver School of Economics.  I’ve been asked to speak specifically about the new Canada Workers Benefit.

I’ve been studying the impact of tax benefits for modest income workers for 15 years, and the evidence from around the world is unusually strong and consistent. Benefits that are focused on providing an incentive for modest income workers to join the workforce have led to increased labour market attachment in the US, the UK, and Canada.

The existing Working Income Tax Benefit (or WITB) suffers from two major shortcomings.

First, it is too small. The maximum benefit for a single worker under the 2017 configuration was only $1,043, and that person would see no benefit if income is above $18,792. That means that a full-time full-year minimum wage worker in most provinces would see zero benefit from the WITB. In my view, this meant that the WITB was missing its proper target because it was too small.

Second, the WITB lacks salience. It is hidden away on the tax form, requiring the filing of a special supplemental schedule so people might not even be aware of it.  This has resulted in a substantial number of people who are eligible for the WITB not actually receiving it.

The proposed transition to the Canada Workers Benefit makes substantial and important progress in ameliorating both of these shortcomings.

The new CWB is larger.  The maximum benefit is 30% bigger for singles and 24% bigger for couples or those with children. As important, the income range now covered by the CWB is much larger—extending up to $24,112 for unattached singles and $36,483 for couples and those with children. This will mean a much larger proportion of modest-income workers will see the CWB increase the attractiveness of work compared to the old WITB.

The new CWB will also be easier to access. In a new and very important initiative, the Canada Revenue Agency will check tax forms that are filed to see if the taxfiler is eligible for the CWB. If the CWB schedule is not filled in, starting in 2019 the CRA will do so on behalf of the taxfiler automatically. Moreover, the government has committed to explore ways to pay out the CWB on a monthly basis rather than keeping it buried in the tax form.

Both of these measures—higher benefits and making benefits easier to access—are important advances. However, there is still more work to do. Here, briefly, are three ideas.

First, I think benefits still need to be larger, and extend up to $30,000 of income. Full time full year work is 2000 hours a year, and with the minimum wage heading to $15 an hour in some provinces, that’s $30,000 of annual earnings. In my view, the target should be to ensure a full-time full-year workers sees some benefit from the CWB so that we can help reward those who work.

Second, the government should continue efforts to make the benefit more salient. Economists spend a lot of time designing policies with good incentives to encourage positive responses from Canadian workers. But if those incentives are buried deep in complexity we can’t expect to realize the full positive response.  Separate notification and payment of the CWB outside the tax forms would be a step forward in furthering this needed salience.

Third, the government should undertake a study of the feasibility of “individualizing” the CWB as advocated by Professor Tammy Schirle of Wilfrid Laurier University. Individualizing means that the benefit is phased out based on individual income rather than couple income.  This would have an important impact on the work incentives for married women, which would give women a boost within the economy and our society.