Article content

High corporate taxes is a well-known gripe of businesses across Canada, but the biggest surprise for Dan Kelly was the proportion of small businesses keen to see the scrapping of higher tax on selling their business to family members as opposed to a third party.

“It is a crazy policy that exists for a number of reasons,” said Kelly, chief executive officer of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, which represents 110,000 small business owners. “(It) discourages owners from passing on their business within the family.”

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or What small business wants on party platforms: Tax cuts (of course) and revival of income-splitting Back to video

On Wednesday, the non-profit organization released its Federal Business Platform — a wish list of issues it wants the political parties to commit to as part of their electoral platform. CFIB members are spread across a variety of industries, with 24,800 members from the retail sector alone. The report was aggregated from its internal surveys.

With the federal election looming, the biggest concern facing small business owners is — not surprisingly — high tax rates.