--- author: TVO Today date: '2026-03-19' guest: '' layout: post.njk source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyysKLhv_YE speaker: TVO Today tags: - tax-reform - income-tax - consumption-tax - government-spending - corporate-tax title: 加拿大税制改革：收入税、消费税与政府支出的深度辩论 summary: 本期节目深入探讨了加拿大税制改革的关键议题。税务专家Allison Christians和Geoffrey Turner就个人所得税与消费税的平衡、政府开支的必要性、企业税的效率以及税制改革对社会心理的影响展开了激烈辩论。Christians强调所得税的累进性与社会安全网的重要性，而Turner则主张转向消费税以刺激经济增长，并呼吁削减政府开支。双方均指出税制改革的复杂性，并建议进行全面的皇家委员会调查，以期找到更优化的解决方案。 insight: '' draft: true series: '' category: politics-society area: society-thinking project: [] people: [] companies_orgs: - OECD products_models: [] media_books: - Income Tax Act - Carter Commission status: evergreen --- ### 加拿大税制改革辩论：开场白与基础认知 **主持人**: Allison Christians 是一位教授，也是麦吉尔大学法学院的 H. Heward Stikeman 税法主席。Geoffrey Turner 则是多伦多大学法学院的兼职教授和税务顾问。二位都来到录音棚，非常感谢你们的到来。
Original English **Host**: Allison Christians is a professor and the H. Heward Stikeman chair in the Law of Taxation at McGill University's Faculty of Law. And Geoffrey Turner is an adjunct professor and tax counsel in residence at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. You guys both joined me in studio. Thank you so much for joining me.
**主持人**: 谢谢 Jan。
Original English >> Thanks, Jan. >> All right.
**主持人**: 很少能有两位税务爱好者同时出现在录音棚，但我不得不提一下这个漂亮的杯子。Alison，这是什么？
Original English It's very rare that we have two tax enthusiasts in studio, but I have to bring attention to this beautiful mug here. Alison, what is this?
**Allison Christians**: 嗯。
Original English >> Well.
**Allison Christians**: 我得说，在税务方面，很难找到比我更狂热的人了。我就是非常喜欢税法。所以我就开始做这些杯子。大家都喜欢“我爱税法”的杯子。当然，我来自魁北克，所以我们。
Original English >> You know, I have to start out by saying it's hard to find a bigger nerd than me when it comes to tax. I just really love tax law. And so I started making these. And everybody loves a good I love tax law mug. And of course I'm from Quebec. So we.
**主持人**: 好了，两门语言都有了。
Original English >> And there we go. >> Both languages.
**Allison Christians**: 是的。
Original English >> Yeah.
**主持人**: 现在我们得问问里面装的是什么了。
Original English >> Now we have to ask what's in it.
**Allison Christians**: 今天就只是水。
Original English >> Well, it's just water for today.
**主持人**: 好的，好的。报税季刚开始。
Original English >> All right, all right. Tax season has just begun.
**主持人**: 是的，是的。好的。Alison，我们从基本问题开始。感觉我们好像什么都要交税。也许只是因为季节到了，所以我们才有这种感觉。你认为我们加拿大人知道我们的**税款**都花在了哪里吗？
Original English >> All right. >> Yeah yeah. All right. Alison, let's I want to start with the basics. It feels like all we do is pay taxes on everything. It might just be the season. So that's why we're feeling that way. Do you think we as Canadians know what our taxes are paying for?
**Allison Christians**: 是的，我觉得这是个好问题。一个很好的开场问题。我想我们对税款的某些用途有一些了解。但我觉得我们常常忽视了税款的很多用途。你可能注意到了，比如你去**医院**，你会想，我的税款支持了这个医院。但你可能不会想到你的税款还支持了**整个法院系统**。以及，你知道，在必要时，它能**强化你的合同**，如果这种事发生在你身上，还有**公司法**等等。我们只是不知道我们的税款支持的所有这些**隐藏**的方面。
Original English >> Yeah, I think it's a good question. Great starting question. I think we have some idea of some of the things our taxes pay for. And I think we overlook a lot of what our taxes pay for. So you probably notice, you know, your hospital when you go there and you think, okay, my tax is paid for the hospital and you probably don't think about how your tax is paid for like the entire court system. And, you know, it's going to reinforce your contracts when the time comes, if that ever happens to you, that kind of thing, corporate law and all that stuff. We just don't know about all those hidden things that our taxes.
**主持人**: 支付。
Original English >> Pay for.
**主持人**: All right, Geoffrey，我们的税款应该支付什么？
Original English All right, Geoffrey, what are our taxes supposed to pay for?
**Geoffrey Turner**: 哦。
Original English >> Oh.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 它们意在成为**政府**筹集所需**收入**的手段，以运营**政府**并资助**社会项目**。我们的**个人所得税系统**部分旨在实现**财富再分配**，通过对有更高支付能力的人征收更高的税率来减少**不平等**，从而使政府有资金支持低收入人群。所以，这就是其主要目的。更近一些，我们看到**政府**们试图将税收系统用作**政策工具**来影响行为，通过税收系统进行某种**社会工程**。而更传统的税收系统观点会反对这种**社会工程**的使用，或许应该重新聚焦于其传统的目的，即以最**中立**、最**不具侵扰性**的方式筹集收入。
Original English >> Well, they're intended to be the means by which governments raise the revenues that they need to run the government to fund social programs. Our personal income tax system is partly conceived to effect redistributions, to reduce inequality by taxing people with high ability to pay at higher rates so that the government has funds to support lower income people. So. So that's the primary purpose. More recently, we've seen governments tempted to use the tax system as a policy tool to influence behaviour, sort of social engineering through the tax system and more traditional perspectives on the purpose of the tax system would object to that social engineering use of the tax system, and maybe it ought to be refocused more on its traditional purpose of raising revenues in the most neutral and least intrusive manner.
**主持人**: 你介意我稍微讲讲历史吗？因为税收刚被引入时，我们资助的是完全不同的东西。你知道，那是为了战争。从那时起，情况变化了很多，但我们现在仍在用税收支付我们很多服务。
Original English >> Do you mind me asking if you could do a little bit of a history lesson here? Because when taxes were first introduced, we were funding something quite different. You know, it was a war. Things have changed a lot since then, but we are still using taxes to pay for a lot of our services.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 你说得对。1917年，加拿大引入了**所得税**，以资助**第一次世界大战**的开支。那时的税率很低。随着加拿大人对**政府服务**的需求增加，税收范围逐渐扩大。当然，现在我们极度、极其严重地依赖我们的**所得税系统**。
Original English >> So you're right in in 1917, the introduction of our income tax in Canada to fund the expenses of World War One. And that was a tax that was at a very low rate of income. It was it gradually expanded as Canadians demanded more government services. And of course, now we rely very, very heavily, far too heavily on our income tax system.
### 政府收入来源与OECD比较 **主持人**: 好的，让我们看看一些**政府收入**的来源。将加拿大**政府收入**的百分比与**经济合作与发展组织**（**OECD**）的平均水平进行比较，**个人税**——也就是我们大约在这个月交的税——在加拿大高于**OECD平均水平**。**企业税**也是如此，这是企业支付的。还有**房产税**。当然，当我们看图表下方时，在**消费税**方面——也就是**销售税**或**社会保险税**——加拿大**政府收入**的百分比与**OECD平均水平**相比要低得多。
Original English All right. With that, let's see where some government revenue comes from. When comparing the percentage of Canada's government revenue to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or the OECD average individual taxes, that's what we pay around this time of month is higher in Canada than the OECD average. The same with corporate taxes. That's what businesses pay and property taxes. Of course, when we talk about homeowners, when we look lower down on that chart there, when it comes to the consumption, that's the sales tax or social insurance taxes, the percentage of government revenue of Canada compared to the OECD average much lower.
**主持人**: 鉴于此，Alison，看看这个，有什么让你感到意外的吗？
Original English With that being said, Alison, when looking at this, what sticks out to you?
**Allison Christians**: 那很好。那是一件好事。我们的**消费税**较低是件好事。为什么？因为**消费税**是**累退**的。它们对低收入人群的影响比对高收入人群大得多。我们不应该，我们不应该放弃**所得税**。**所得税**之所以如此可持续，正是因为它具有**累进性**。如果你更富有，你支付更多，因为你有更高的支付能力。如果你贫穷，你支付更少，也是因为这个原因。所以对我来说，这并不令人震惊。而且我不会在结构上改变它。
Original English >> That's good. That's a good thing. That's a good thing that our consumption taxes are lower. Why? Because consumption taxes are regressive. They hit people at the bottom of the scale way more than they hit people at the top of the scale. And we shouldn't we should not be moving away from income taxes. The reason the income tax is so sustainable is precisely because it's progressive. If you're a richer, you pay more because you have more ability to pay. And if you're poor, you pay less for that reason. So for me, it's not that shocking. And it's just not not something I would structurally change.
**主持人**: Jeffrey。
Original English >> Jeffrey.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 好的。
Original English >> Okay.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 嗯，你们可以继续。
Original English >> Well take care.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 我有不同的看法，这并不意外。你展示的**OECD**统计数据图表包含了加拿大所有三个级别的**政府**。你可以看到**个人所得税**基础和**公司所得税**基础。它们大约占总收入的一半。而这被广泛认为是一种非常**低效**的**政府收入**筹集方式，因为通过对**收入**的产生征税，我们实际上在**阻碍收入**的产生。我们是在惩罚**收入**的产生。然而，如果我们像许多其他**OECD国家**一样，更多地依赖**消费税**基础，而减少对**所得税**的依赖，那么我们将更强有力地鼓励**收入**的产生。我们又在抑制什么呢？**消费税**？Alison 提到**消费税**可能具有**累退性**，这是一个好观点。但加拿大有方法来抵消这一点，比如**GST税收抵免**，对吧？这是一笔支付给低收入人群的款项。其最初目的是为了抵消低收入人群（年收入约三万到四万加元）可能产生的**GST**。最近，Mark Carney政府改变了**GST税收抵免**，对吧？他们不再将其与最初目的挂钩，即补偿低收入人群的**GST**。他们将其变成了一种**收入补助**。现在它被称为“食品和必需品福利”。所以现在它又成了一种给低收入人群的**收入支持**。我们真正应该做的是恢复和加强**GST税收抵免**，以抵消其潜在的**累退性**。
Original English >> It's not a surprise that I have a different perspective on that. That chart that you showed the OECD stats takes into account all three levels of government in Canada, and you do see the personal income tax base and the corporate income tax base. It's about half of overall revenues raised. And that is widely regarded as a very inefficient way of raising government revenues, because by taxing income generation, we are discouraging income. We're punishing income generation. Whereas if we were to be more like many other OECD countries and rely more on our consumption tax base and less on income taxes, we would be more strongly encouraging income generation. And what are we discourage? Consumption taxes? And Alison makes a good point that consumption taxes can be regressive. But there are ways that we use in Canada to offset that with the GST tax credit, right? That's an amount that's paid to lower income people. And its original purpose was to offset the expected GST, that lower income people whose incomes were around 30 or so thousand dollars a year would would incur. Now, recently, the Mark Carney government has has changed the GST tax credit, right. And they've untethered it from its historical purpose of reimbursing lower income people for their expected GST. And they've turned it into an income supplement. Right now it's the Groceries and essentials benefit. So now it's yet another income support for lower income people. What we really should be doing is restoring and beefing up the GST tax credit to offset that potential.
### 税收系统对行为的影响与心理感知 **主持人**: Alison，仅从这次简短的谈话中我们就知道，税收也会影响我们的行为。那么，如果我们降低个人所得税但提高消费税，会发生什么？我们会看到什么？
Original English >> Regressivity Alison, we know just from this little conversation here that taxes affect our behaviours as well. So what happens, for example, if we do lower personal income tax but raise the consumption tax. What are we going to see.
**Allison Christians**: 是的。所以我想第一点要指出的是，你提到的那种**报销**（指GST税收抵免）是基于收入的。所以你已经必须做所有那些工作来弄清楚人们的收入是多少。对我来说，试图通过使用其他系统来消除**累退性**，对我而言效率低下，而且也仅仅是表明我们需要**所得税系统**，因为我们要进行区分。现在，如果你提高**消费税**并降低**个人税**——嗯，这取决于你对降低**个人税**的定义。我们暂时先不考虑**资本收益**。好吧？所以我们先把**资本收益**放在一边。但是，如果你增加**消费税**，你就是在打击低收入人群，这就会导致需要更多的**退税**。嗯，**退税**从哪里来？钱从哪里来才能把它补上？我的意思是，你不得不一次又一次地提高**消费税**。所以你会惹恼人们。我想说一点关于**心理学**的东西。**所得税**——没有人喜欢交税，好吗？包括我在内。我是那个税务狂人。我也不比你们更喜欢交税，就好像“哦，我可以用这笔钱买咖啡”。但是当我报**所得税**时，我的**薪水单**周围仿佛有一层迷雾。我知道**所得税**被扣除了，但直到四月份我才完全接触到这个税收系统。然后，是的，我得填我的**税表**。但大多数加拿大人都能拿到**退税**，因为他们有**工资**上的**个人税**。所以他们对**政府**没有负面情绪。但是，每次你去商店，你得付15%或者你所在地区的**销售税**，你就会和**政府**产生一次小小的互动，而且是一次负面的互动。就像，我以为我要付100块。为什么我要付115块？该死的，**政府**在拿我的钱。对吧？我只是觉得这种**心理**是我们真的需要小心的地方。如果你要把一切都转向**消费税**，那将是一种让人们**反对政府资助**的途径。他们会反对的。即使我们知道，当你**减税**时，我们也**削减**了我们想要的**项目**。
Original English >> Yeah. So I think the first thing to note is that the the reimbursement that you talked about, well, it's based on income. So you already have to do all of that work to figure out what people have in terms of income. So for me, changing, you know, trying to undo the regressivity by using the other system is to me inefficient, but also just like it just shows us that we need an income tax system because we're trying to differentiate. Now, if you increase the consumption tax and you reduce personal taxes, well, it depends on what you mean by reduced personal taxes. But we're leaving aside capital gains for right now. Okay. So we'll leave aside capital gains. But if you increase consumption taxes, then you're hitting people at the bottom of the scale and then it's going to necessitate more refund. Well, where are you getting the refund? Where's the money coming from to bring it back? I mean, you have to raise that consumption tax up, raise it up again and raise it up again. So you're going to get people upset. So I just want to say one thing about the psychology of it. Income taxes. No one likes to pay taxes, okay. Me included. I'm the tax nerd. I don't like to pay them any more than you do in, in the sense of like, oh, I could spend that money on, you know, coffee. But when I do my income taxes, I sort of have a fog around my paycheque. Like I know income taxes are being taken out, but I don't fully interact with the tax system until April. And then, yes, I have to fill out my tax return. But most Canadians are getting a refund because they have personal taxes on wages. So they don't feel negative toward the government. But every single time you go into a store and you have to pay 15% or whatever your percentage is of sales tax, you're having a little interaction with the government and it's a negative one. It's like, I thought I was going to pay 100. Why am I paying 115? Doggone it, the government is taking my money. Right. And I just think the psychology of that is something we really need to be careful about. If you're going to switch everything to consumption, that's going to be a way for people to push against government funding altogether. They're going to push against it. Even though we know that when you reduce taxes, you reduce the programs that we want as well.
**Geoffrey Turner**: Jeffrey，我也想听听你的看法。
Original English >> Jeffrey, I'll get your take on that as well.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 我认为，当人们面对我们现在让加拿大人承担极高**所得税**的税收系统时，我实际上认为存在一种**心理**，一种**高税负**、**高合规负担**的感觉。我们在**OECD国家**的**税收占GDP比率**中也能看到这一点。加拿大的这个比率正在上升。我们大约是34.9%的**税收占GDP比率**，这也高于**OECD平均水平**，这是客观数据，表明我们是一个**高税收国家**。而且，大部分**税收收入**都来自于**所得税系统**。而且我认为，普遍存在一种感觉，认为我们的税收太多了，有点过分了，尽管**所得税**可能，如你所说，对大多数人来说，他们会遇到的是**税务合规季**。
Original English >> Well, I think people, when they are facing the income tax system at the very high rates that we now subject Canadians to taxes on their income, I actually think there is a psychology, a sense of high tax burden, high compliance burden. We see it reflected in the other OECD figures about the tax to GDP ratio amongst OECD countries. Canada is ticking up. They're about 34.9% tax to GDP ratio. And that also is above the OECD average, which is objective data that shows that we are a high tax country. And and most of that tax revenue is generated from the income tax system. And I do think there is a a broadly shared sense that we are taxed too much, a little bit too excessively, even though the income taxes may be, you know, as you say, you encounter it for most people, the tax compliance season.
### 税制改革的呼声与不同视角 **主持人**: 鉴于此，让我们来谈谈我认为你们两位都能达成一致的——**税制改革**。变革势在必行。Jeffrey，我想先听听你的想法。你认为应该做些什么才能让交税更容易接受？
Original English >> With that being said, let's talk about something that I think both of you can agree on is tax reform. Change needs to come here. Jeffrey, I want to start with you. What do you think should happen to make paying taxes more digestible.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 嗯，我认为我们需要**降低国家的整体税负**，至少尝试回到我们**历史上的税收水平**以及其他**OECD国家**所面临的水平。这将需要**削减政府开支**，在所有**政府**层面，这是一项巨大的任务，因为**政府**开支过大并且**赤字**运行。它们不像我们目前的税收那样，无法支撑我们选择的**政府开支水平**。**政府**正在**赤字**运行，并增加**国家债务**，增加需要支付的**利息支出**。联邦层面，**国家债务**为1.3万亿美元。所以第一步应该是**遏制政府开支**，这样我们才能负担得起**减税**。方法很简单，不是秘密。对于如何**改革税制**，存在相当大的**共识**。我们刚在去年秋天看到**CPA**的报告。**C.D. Howe Institute**几周前刚刚发布了一份“**大爆炸式税制改革**”报告，它们基本观点一致。以及大多数评论员对**公司税制**的看法，我们需要一个**统一的、更低的**公司所得税率，这样我们才能在吸引**全球流动的资本**方面与其他国家竞争。这意味着要**取消小企业税收减免**，这将极具争议，因为**小企业部门**依赖于此，而且根深蒂固。但想象一下，如果我们有一个**统一的、更具竞争力的**公司所得税率，我们可以获得的**简化**带来的好处。它将极大地简化我们公司所得系统的许多方面。在**个人所得税**方面，很明显需要**降低税率**，并将负担转移到**消费税**上。这是这些报告的**一致建议**。并非全国人都同意这一点。但这是那些对我们的税收系统非常认真思考过的人的看法。所以，我们的想法是尽量减少或在一定程度上降低人们面临的**边际税率**。你知道，现在在**安大略省**，最高**边际税率**在相对较低的收入门槛25.8万加元就开始征收了。我的意思是，这不是一个超级富有的、非常有钱的人。而且这肯定比美国的要低得多。在美国，高税率在更高的收入水平才开始出现。而且最高**边际税率**是53.5%，对于一个年收入超过25万美元的个人来说。我的意思是，这已经超过了50%的心理障碍。所以显然我们需要降低这些税率。
Original English >> Well I think we need to reduce the overall tax burden in the country to at least try to get back down to our historical levels of taxes and what other industrialised countries in the OECD are facing that is going to require spending reductions at all government levels, which is a huge task because governments are excessively spending and running deficits. They're not like our taxes are currently, not sustaining the level of government spending that that we've opted for. Governments are running deficits and adding to the national debt, adding to the interest expense that has to be paid on the federally, it's $1.3 trillion of national debt. So the first step needs to be to rein in our our government spending so that we can then afford to reduce taxes. The way to do that, it's not a secret. It's not a mystery. There's a pretty good sense of unanimity on the ways to reform our tax system. We just had the CPA report published last fall. The C.D. Howe Institute just published a Big Bang tax report a few weeks ago, and they're largely aligned. And with most what commentators have been saying on the corporate tax system, we need to have a Harmonized rate of corporate income tax at a lower level than it is now, so that we're more competitive with other countries that we're competing to attract globally mobile pools of capital. And that means eliminating the small business deduction, which is going to be highly controversial because the small business sector relies on that, and that's deeply entrenched. But imagine the simplicity benefits that we could gain if we had a single Harmonized and more competitive corporate income tax rate. It would simplify many of the features of our corporate income system immensely. On personal income taxes, it's very clear that they need the rates need to be reduced and shift the burden to consumption taxes. This was the unanimous recommendation of these reports. Not everybody in the country agrees with that. But that's what those who are quite thoughtful about our tax system have said. And so the idea is to minimise or reduce somewhat the marginal rates that people are exposed to. As you know, right now in Ontario, the top marginal rate kicks in at a relatively low income threshold of $258,000. Now, I mean, that's not a super rich, highly wealthy person. And it's certainly much lower than our the United States. The high rates kick in at much higher income levels. And the top marginal rate is 53.5% for an individual, earning each extra dollar over $250,000 a year. I mean, it's over that psychological 50% barrier. So clearly we need to to reduce those rates.
**主持人**: Alison，我让你回应一下几点。Jeffrey 提到要**遏制开支**。我想更好地理解一下，如果我们这样做，可能会发生什么？
Original English >> Alison, I'm going to get you to respond on a few things. One of the things that Jeffrey had mentioned was about reining in that spending. I'd want to get a better understanding of potentially what would happen, you know, what would we.
**Allison Christians**: 是的。你是不想要**医院**了吗？你是不想要**公共医疗**了吗？你是不想要一个运行正常的**教育系统**了吗？看看**美国**就知道了。如果你想看看**遏制开支**是什么样子，那就是**一切私有化**。这意味着你将不得不自掏腰包。所以当人们谈论这个时——我明白写报告的人（CD Howe, CPA）的出发点，我理解他们的出发点，因为他们关注**效率**，我完全理解。但最终，如果你想要一个没有**社会项目**的国家，这就是正确的道路。
Original English >> Yeah. You don't want to have hospitals. You don't want to have public health care. You don't want to have education system that works. Just look south of the border. If you want to see what reining in spending looks like, it looks like privatising everything. And that means you're going to have to pay that out of your pocket. So when people talk about this, like I understand why the thrust of the people that write reports CD, how CPA, I understand the thrust because they're focussed on efficiency and I totally get it. But at the end of the day, if you want to have a country that does not have social programs, this is the correct route.
**Allison Christians**: 这是正确的。
Original English That is correct.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 你应该。
Original English >> You should.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 这就是你应该走的道路。
Original English >> Jeffrey. >> That's the that's the that's the road you should go down.
**Geoffrey Turner**: 我的意思是，仅看**联邦政府**，有几个**开支**的类别。有对**个人**的**转移支付**，比如**儿童福利**和**老年人**的**OAS**和**GIS**。有对**政府**的**转移支付**，这主要资助了省**政府**的**教育**和**医疗保健**开支。还有一般的**政府费用**，就像其他所有事情一样。这些年来，由于**政府规模**和**政府范围**的增长而膨胀。**Carney政府**已经采取了小步措施来开始遏制它。然后是**国家债务**的**利息**，这又是另一个不幸有些失控的问题。这只是...目前是**550亿加元**的**利息**，今年就是**550亿**，仅用于支付**联邦政府**的**利息**。而且这个数字预计还会增加。所以，但**遏制政府开支**的主要目标可能需要是**对个人的转移支付**。特别是对**老年人**的**OAS项目**的**转移支付**。这将引起极大的争议。但这是我们**税收和财政系统**中**几十年**来一直存在的**代际不公平**。自从最初决定采用“现收现付”系统来为**老年人**提供**收入支持**以来。在1950年代和1960年代，当**项目**最初采用时，这是可以维持和可持续的，并且可以证明要求**当代人**支付**老年人**的费用是合理的，因为他们经历了第二次世界大战和经济大萧条。但我们仍然沿用同样的“现收现付”系统来支付**OAS**。我想知道，今天要求**年轻人**补贴**老年人**的论点是否仍然那么有说服力，因为**老年人**的收入，**OAS**到大约九万多美元还有全额**OAS**，而且要到十五万多美元才开始逐步取消。
Original English >> I mean, just looking at the federal government, there's several buckets of spending. There's transfers to individuals. So that's like the child benefit and OAS and GIS for seniors. There's transfers to governments. And that's what largely funds the provincial government's education and health care spending. There's just general government expenses. And that's like everything else. And that's been inflated over the years because of the growth in the size of the government and the scope of the government. And the Carney government has made baby steps to start reining in that. And then there's interest on the national debt, and that's another one that's unfortunately out of control a little bit. That's just that's project that's 73. Right now it's $55 billion interest in the current year, $55 billion just on interest to cover the interest payments of the federal government. And that one is projected to increase. So, so. But the other, the main target of of Iranian government spending probably needs to be the transfers to individuals. Right. And in particular, the transfers under the OAS program to seniors. And this is going to be very, very controversial. But this is the intergenerational inequity that has been baked into our tax and fiscal system for decades, ever since the initial decision was made to adopt a pay as you go system for income support for seniors. And that was tenable and sustainable in the 1950s and 1960s, when the program was initially adopted, and it was justifiable for current generations to pay for seniors because they went through World War Two and they went through the depression. But we still have the same pay as you go system for OAS. And I wonder if the arguments are still as compelling that we should ask young people today to subsidise seniors who are making, you know, incomes that OAS doesn't you get full OAS up to, what, 90 some thousand dollars, and it doesn't phase out until 150 some dollars.
**主持人**: 好的，我明白你的观点了，Allison。我也需要你的加入。让我们听听 Jeffrey 的一些观点。但在改革**税收系统**方面，也有很多挑战。
Original English >> All right. I get your point, Allison. I need you in there as well. Let's get some points as to what Jeffrey had said. But there are lots of challenges in reforming the. >> Tax system as well. >> Break those down.
**Allison Christians**: 为我们分析一下。是的。所以，你看，我不反对**收入测试**。应该有一些**收入测试**。这会在高层解决一些问题。但我们根本没有谈论过**公司补贴**。拜托，这才是真正的问题所在。不是给**老年人**的**支付**，我们可以通过**收入测试**来解决。但我得说，我看不到**膨胀**。比如，我知道人们喜欢说“哦，**政府**膨胀了，臃肿了”。不，我认为你看不到。如果你查阅**加拿大统计局**的数据，它并不在那里。而**债务利息**是一个持续存在的问题，当然，但**平衡预算**也不是正确的做法。那是不正确的，因为那不是对未来的**投资**。所以我们可以用**债务**进行**投资**，这没关系。这不是什么可怕的事。真正可怕的是，我们正在补贴**旧经济**，补贴**旧事物**。我读过的每一份报告都告诉我，我们需要更多的**税收抵免**。我们需要更多的**企业减税**。而且，你知道，我们需要**激励增长**。每一个政客都会告诉你，两党中的每一个都会说**减税**是好的，**减税**是好的。但大局是，如果你**减税**太多，你**削减**的是什么呢？所以，不要为了**减税**而**减税**，你需要思考，我们到底想**资助**什么？我们作为一个**社会**、一个**国家**，我们的**项目**是什么？我们想要实现什么**项目**，以及**资助**它需要什么？
Original English >> For us. Yeah. So look, I think that the focus I don't disagree actually that it should be means tested. There should be some means testing. And that's going to solve some of those problems at the top. But I don't think we've talked about corporate subsidies at all in this conversation. And that's come on. That's the real problem here. It's not payments to seniors that we can fix with the means testing. But I will say that I don't see a bloat, right? Like I know that people like to talk about like, oh, the government has ballooned and bloated. No, I don't think you see it. If you look at the Statistics Canada, it's not there. And the interest on the debt perpetual problem, of course, but a balanced budget isn't correct either. That's not correct because that's not an investment in the future. So we can invest with debt. That's okay. That's not something to be a bogeyman. What is to be scared of is that we are subsidising the old economy, we're subsidising old things. And every single report I have ever read tells me we need more tax credits. We need more tax cuts for corporations. And, you know, we need to incentivise growth. And every politician is going to tell you that every single one on both sides of the aisle, they will always say that tax cuts are good, tax cuts are good. But the big picture is if you cut too much tax, then what are you cutting like? So don't just cut for the sake of cutting, you need to be thinking, well, what are we trying to finance here? Like what's our project as a society, as a country? What is our project and what does it take to finance that?
**主持人**: 考虑到这一点，我们来谈谈**改革**。我们看到的是什么？
Original English >> With that being said, you know, let's talk about the reform. What would that what are we looking at here?
**Allison Christians**: 是的。我想你可能同意这一点。我在**CPA**的报告中也看到了。我认为是时候再来一次**税收皇家委员会**了。我想，你知道，我来加拿大开始教书时，我看了《**所得税法**》，我说这到底是怎么回事？它太长了，太复杂了。里面有太多无意义的曲折，根本说不通。是时候重新思考了。我们有60年代**卡特委员会**的先例。基本上，你需要一个委员会。你需要聚集跨越意识形态、跨越专业知识的**专家**，并给他们一个任务。去看看这个系统。去，去告诉我们**减税**是否真的能做到这件事。给我们数据，给我们数字，告诉我们我们需要在哪里**修复所有规则**，来建立一个**综合性的系统**。现在我们都知道**政府**不会这么做。报告里有什么，**政客**们都不会做，因为这样做会很痛苦。
Original English >> Yeah. So I think you probably agree with this. And I see it in the CPA report as well. I think it's time for another royal commission on tax. I think that, you know, when I came to Canada to start teaching, I looked at the Income Tax Act and said, what the heck is going on here? It's way too long. It's way too complicated. There's way too many funny roads through that don't make any sense. Time to rethink it. And we have a precedent from the 60s, the Carter Commission. And basically what you need is a commission. You need to like get the experts that range across ideologies, that range across expertise, and you need to give them a mandate. Go look at the system. Go, go tell us if actually tax cuts really are going to do this thing. Give us the numbers, give us the data, show us where we need to fix all the rules all together to get a comprehensive system. Now we both know government's not going to do it. Whatever is in that report, the politicians won't do it because because it will be painful to to do some.
**Allison Christians**: 来自那些将受改革影响的人的**政治反对**。
Original English >> Of the political opposition from those who suffer from the reforms.
**Allison Christians**: 是的。因为你得想想现在的**税收系统**。它就像一棵**圣诞树**，每个人下面都有一个**礼物**。如果你进行**改革**，我们就得拿走一些**礼物**。
Original English >> Yeah. Because you have to think of the tax system right now. It's like a Christmas tree and everybody's got a present underneath. And if you do reform, we're going to take some of those presents away.
### 最后的改革建议 **主持人**: 好的。最后还有一个问题，给你们两位。Jeffrey，你先说。如果你希望我们的**当前税收系统**改革**一件事**，你希望它是什么？
Original English >> All right. One last question to both of you. Geoffrey, start with you. If there is one thing that you would like to see reformed with our current tax system, what would you like that to be?
**Geoffrey Turner**: 嗯，我希望首先关注**公司所得税改革**，因为我们国家正面临**生产力危机**。其原因是什么？**企业投资**不足，未能投入能够提高我们公民**生产力**的**机械和技术**。我们需要吸引更多**资本**和**投资**进入**加拿大企业**。我会优先考虑**公司所得税系统**的改革。正如我所说，通过**统一税率**和**简化**。不仅仅是**简化**，因为我们不喜欢**复杂性**，因为它让我们沮丧。这主要是因为**合规负担**。这对**企业**和**个人**来说成本很高，他们不得不支付**咨询费**来咨询如何操作、如何**合规**以及如何处理他们的**合规负担**。所以目的是**减轻合规负担**并节省所有这些成本。因此，我会首先关注**商业税**。
Original English >> Well, I would like to focus. >> First on corporate income tax reform because we have a productivity crisis in this country. And what's the reason for that? Inadequate business investment in the machinery and technology that allows our citizens to work more productively. We need to attract more capital and more investment into Canadian businesses. I would see a reform of the corporate income tax system first. And as I said, by harmonising the rates and simplifying and and not just simplifying because we don't like complexity, because it frustrates us, it's because of the compliance burden. It is costly for businesses and individuals who have to pay advisers to advise them on what to do, how to just comply and navigate with the system, and how to deal with their compliance burden. So the purpose is to reduce the compliance burden and save all of those costs. So I would focus on business taxes first.
**主持人**: All right。Allison。
Original English >> All right.
**Allison Christians**: 好的，太好了。那我就做个相反的。我认为我们应该关注**人**。我认为我们应该**优先考虑人**。你知道，**伟大的加拿大承诺**是什么，对吧？有一个**社会安全网**，它使人们能够蓬勃发展。我们如何支持这个**社会安全网**？不**私有化医疗系统**，不**私有化**我们**每个人**都需要生存的东西，并确保**投资**放在正确的地方。所以我认为重点应该是**人**，而不是**公司利润**。我认为这已经体现在**贫富差距**上了。我认为我们看到了证据，证明我是对的。总是对的，Jeffrey。总是对的。我们应该关注这一点，因为我们看到**贫富差距**越来越大，意味着**富人**和**穷人**之间的差距越来越大，而**富人**变得越来越富有，因为我们给了他们太多。所以我们需要稍微激进一些。但同样，我理解这意味着要拿走一些**礼物**，而且这确实与我们被告知要担心的50%的**税率神话**产生了碰撞，当**富人**支付50%的税时。但我们大多数人并不富裕。所以，对我来说，这并不是我们真正的问题。但是，你知道，我认为**皇家委员会**至少会让我们在我们之间找到一个可以确定哪种是正确方向的地方。
Original English >> Okay, great. So I'll do the opposite. I think we should look at people. I think we should think about people first. And you know, what is the great Canadian promise, right? There's a social safety net that makes it possible for people to thrive. And how do we support that social safety net? Not privatising the health care system and not privatising things that are that we need for everyone to thrive, and making sure that the investments are put in the right place. So I think the focus ought to be on the people and not on corporate profits. And I think it's borne out in the wealth gap. I think we see the proof that that I'm right. Always right, Jeffrey. Always right. That we should be looking at this because we are seeing an increasing wealth gap, meaning that we're getting more space between the rich and the poor, and the rich are getting richer because we are giving them too much. So we need to be getting a little bit more aggressive. But again, I understand that's taking some gifts away from people and it does bump up against that 50% mythology thing that we're told we're supposed to start worrying about tax at 50% when rich people pay it, but most of us aren't rich. So that's not to me, not really actually our problem. But that's, you know, I think the royal Commission would at least, I think, get us a place between us where we're going to figure out which of those is the right way to go.
**主持人**: 遗憾的是，我觉得我们可以就这个问题继续讨论很长时间。我真的很感激这次谈话。我没想到自己会这么说，但我很享受这次谈话。**税收**，谁能想到呢？非常感谢。非常感谢 Jeffrey。
Original English >> Unfortunately, I feel like we could go on and on and on for this for a lot longer. I really appreciate this. I didn't think I would say this, but I had a lot of fun with this one. Taxes. Who knew? Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you Jeffrey.