Budget 2017: A look at what might come of the tax expenditure review
OTTAWA — For weeks, speculation had been swirling that the Liberals wanted to get rid of the tax exemption for private health and dental plans, which the Finance Department has calculated costs the federal government about $2.9 billion in foregone revenue per year.
The controversy over the suggestion, first raised by the National Post in December, took on steam as the Conservatives pressed the Liberals to divulge their plans and the government refused to clear things up one way or the other — until they did.
“We are committed to protecting the middle class from increased taxes and that is why we will not be raising (those) taxes,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Feb. 1 in the House of Commons.
The thing is, that while taxing health and dental benefits now appears to be definitively off the table, no one really knows for sure what else is on it as the Liberals work on fulfilling a campaign pledge to find $3 billion per year in new revenue by fiscal 2019-20 through “an overdue and wide-ranging review” of existing tax expenditures.