"Such measures would deter investment at a time when we are striving to boost competitiveness and innovation within the industry and across the economy."
The rich are already doing fine. They're doing better than they have since 1920. As a class, they have so much money that they're able to do stock buybacks because investing it doesn't give moneygasm-style returns. We're nearing the point where they can Scrooge McDuck-style swimming pools full of cash.
The problem with the current economy is very much not that the wealthy don't have enough free capital. Quite the opposite, really.
The problem is that they have so much free capital because they're addicted to non-productive methods growing their wealth.
I have no idea, but I'd like the powers that be to recognize that there are two economies and to prioritize the lived economy.
I first became aware of the difference when "the economy" was starting to boom in the 1980s even as we were busy returning to breadlines under the name of food banks.
I'm not sure we even need the finance economy. A pure stock market is one thing, but by the time you get to rents over profit on actual production, the financialization of housing, derivatives of derivatives and all the other distancing from actual production, it's just shell games with no benefit to society.
Your comment seems reasonable until you actually question the details:
How would forgoing a capital gains tax benefit the working public? Any answer you give will basically be "trickle down" economics, which has been proven to not work. Giant corporations and obscenely wealthy individuals hoard capital like a greedy dragon, they certainly don't inject it!
EDIT: Of course they couldn't answer that one simple question...
More than just billionaires. Anyone who invests. But that’s disproportionately richer people, so it’s good. My complaint is that the tax isn’t raised enough.
No, it's not "anyone who invests". The change is only for capital gains above $250,000. If you're reporting $250k or less in capital gains each year, you see no change whatsoever.
What retail investors are making those kinds of realized returns?
It's an interesting thing that has happened to businesses lately, where making money isn't good enough, they have to be making outrageous amounts or it's not worth the effort. They'd rather close up shop than be forced to endure only modest profit
How about we stop the rich from investing in non-productive asset classes like real estate, which seems to be the reason every economist says we're stuck in a quagmire; because capital is being sucked up by real estate and financialization instead of investment into, well, anything else?
We could do that by...taxing the fuck out of capital gains?
No capital gains on principal residence. It would only come up on things like rental properties, cabins, or any other second property.
There’s also things like of a person has RRSP room and ends up in the edge case where this comes up just once or a few times in their life, they can use that to hold off the income tax until they can claim it at a lower tax bracket. If one isn’t put over by a single sale, (say selling multiple rental properties at retirement) they could spread those sales over multiple years to maximize that first $250k rate.
Funny how there is no alternative method of reducing or reversing the growing wealth disparity presented. The class of people who have done better than not only every other Canadian but virtually everyone else on Earth since the last world war that they ALSO profited from is telling us it is unfair to them while a growing number of people cannot eat and house themselves any longer. The very reason people cannot afford to survive is because the top is taking a larger portion of our productivity every single year.