Apart from the few days every year bracketing the release of the federal budget, the way Canadians are taxed is seldom a major issue in our politics.

Technical tax changes happen throughout the year. They tend to be debated in quiet, respectful tones in academic journals and at ivory-tower institutions like the Canadian Tax Foundation. As long as they don’t involve big money, the public largely ignores them.

Right now, however, the federal government’s private company proposals are getting blanket media coverage virtually every day. Small business organizations and professional lobbies are working a full-court press; businesspeople are calling their members of Parliament daily.

The government’s basic idea is a good one. So before absolutely everyone loses their heads, let’s get a few things straight.

Our tax system is designed to ensure that people pay roughly the same tax, regardless of how they earn. This principle, called “integration,” has been a fundamental feature of the system since 1971. The Carter Commission recommended it in a seminal work back in 1966 (“a buck is a buck”) and the principle has stood the test of time.

The government now wants to reinforce integration — and nobody can seriously argue against that. Sorry, businesspeople. You don’t have maternity leave and employer-paid pensions? Tough. That’s not the tax system’s problem — and the tax system can’t fix it for you.

But Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s plan has been very badly implemented. The government went about this process in entirely too hasty a manner. Plan a radical overhaul of the system, draft legislation in the summer, offer a 75-day consultation period and then proceed with reform two months after that? It’s simply not realistic.

And boy, did they get this one wrong. If you build up money in your corporation, and then have the misfortune of dying, you can face a 93 per cent tax rate under this proposal. That’s not equitable or — to use the government’s favourite word — “fair”. Integration is blown out of the water.

And the government botched the income-splitting rules even more completely. The proposals are so vague and complex that it will take 15 years of litigation for judges to make the law. They’ll have to — because the government hasn’t done so.

Why pick a huge public fight with a powerful constituency? Because the government wanted one. It wanted to show most Canadians that it’s ‘on their side.’ Why pick a huge public fight with a powerful constituency? Because the governmentone. It wanted to show most Canadians that it’s ‘on their side.’

It might be simple to say one can’t split income with a stay-at-home spouse or a 20-year old child who have no involvement with the business — but what if they are involved in the business, a little or a lot? What if your spouse fully participates in the business normally, but takes time off to raise a family? What if your adult child comes into the business after school, and eventually takes it over? What happens when you retire? What kinds of records will a company be expected to maintain to prove the level of involvement over the course of a lifetime? (Yes, a lifetime of records will be required.)

Even the least-controversial part of the Trudeau government’s tax reform package — rules against turning dividends into capital gains (otherwise known as “surplus stripping”) — are poorly thought-out. They just create a broad, vague anti-avoidance rule that — again — must be interpreted by judges. It could end up outlawing standard practices like corporate-owned life insurance — a business resiliency tactic that is not necessarily tax-motivated.

There are dozens more questions like these left open by this reform proposal; the government left all of them unanswered.

All this matters more than ever because the federal government — along with many provincial governments — has raised top tax rates.

A fair tax system is not just one where people pay the appropriate tax. It’s one that allows people to know in advance what their obligations are, so they can plan and comply.

Perhaps the worst aspect of this proposal is the fact that it’s not about collecting revenue. This is politics, pure and simple. The government anticipates bringing in only $250 million a year from eliminating ‘income sprinkling’ — just 0.08 per cent of budget revenues. And it’s not about making the system “fairer”. The government was fully aware of alternative reforms that would have been far simpler and more equitable.

So why pick a huge public fight with a powerful constituency? Because the government wanted one. It wanted to show most Canadians that it’s “on their side.” Business owners are an easy group to demonize because people think of them as rich — even though most of them aren’t. It’s reasonable to think that the Trudeau government is quite happy to see this issue dominating the headlines.

There are far more employees out there than business owners. And the nuances of corporate tax integration are hard to understand — even for those of us who do it for a living.

This strategy is a pitch to the NDP-Liberal switch voters who were key to the Liberals’ 2015 victory. The federal government is playing that card again, in tandem with the Ontario Liberal government. Look at recent policy announcements at the federal and provincial levels: deficit spending, high tax rates, rent control, minimum-wage hikes and government-run marijuana stores (a nod to unions). These policies are ultimately bad for the people they’re meant to help, but they sound good right now. It’s not surprising the federal Liberals’ numbers are rising, largely at the expense of the NDP.

Politics is getting in the way of good tax policy. If the federal government is going to make changes of this magnitude, it needs to conduct serious consultations to make sure it’s doing it right and not just making a show of it.

Unless making a show if it is really the entire goal, of course.

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