Taxes, Tariffs, & Subsidies

This study is the first attempt to give an organized survey of the development of the Canadian tax structure from earliest times. It covers a span of three centuries from the first primitive imposts to the highly complex measures of today. The main emphasis is on the dominant role that taxes, tariffs, and intergovernmental subsidies have played in Canadian life since Confederation. Taxes, Tariffs, & Subsidies covers taxation at all three levels of government -- federal, political, and municipal. It gives the history of the major -- income taxes, corporation profits taxes, sales taxes, death duties, tariffs, and property taxes. It relates the growth of provincial taxes in the chaotic tax situation of the depression, and tells of municipal experiments with the 'single tax,' the personal property tax, and the income tax. It describes the financial policies of World War I, of the depression, of World War II, and of the post-war period. In tracing the development of tariff policy from colonial times, Mr. Perry places special emphasis on those far-reaching and influential measures that have helped to shape the Canadian nation -- Reciprocity, the National policy, the British Preferential Tariff, and the Ottawa Agreements -- and discusses the implications of the latest phase, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. One of the most pressing problems in Canada is the proper allocation of taxing powers between the federal government and the provinces, and the payment of subsidies by the Dominion to the provinces. This book explains the background of the arrangements made at the time of union and traces the subsequent developments down to the present scheme of tax rental agreements. Tables, summaries, chronological surveys, and biographical material included in Taxes, Tariffs, & Subsidies give more information on all forms of Canadian taxation than has ever been presented in one book. As a source of data alone it will be of great value to all concerned with taxation. This book is sponsored by the Canadian Tax Foundation.