NOTES & NEWS
CPABC Makes Recommendations to BC Government
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Increasing the number of head offices in BC
According to research conducted for the latest BC Check-Up report,
head offices contribute to the growth of local small businesses and to the
creation of industry clusters (see summary on pages 18-21). Currently,
there is an emergence of high-tech corporate offices in Metro Vancouver,
which is home to three of Canada’s most notable tech companies:
Slack, Hootsuite, and Avigilon. Vancouver is also home to international companies such as Microsoft, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and
Amazon. This is a good start, but BC is still home to only 7.5% of all
head offices in Canada.3
CPABC recommendation:
• Continue to support initiatives like HQ Vancouver (see page 20)
to promote Metro Vancouver as an urban head-office city, and
consider expanding HQ Vancouver into BC’s other major urban
centres and/or industrial hubs.
n September 19, Richard Rees, FCPA, FCA, president & CEO
of CPABC, and Heather Banham, FCPA, FCGA, first vicechair of the CPABC board, presented recommendations to
the province’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government
Services on behalf of the profession. CPABC’s recommendations,
which are designed to encourage business productivity in BC, focused
on four policy areas: implementing input tax credits, increasing the
skilled talent pool, increasing the number of head offices in BC, and
encouraging small businesses to grow.
Implementing input tax credits
The reintroduction of the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) in 2013 has put
BC at risk of falling further behind other western provinces and US
states in terms of business productivity. According to a recent paper
commissioned by the Business Council of British Columbia, the application of the PST at all points along the supply chain and in the final sales
price has had a cascading effect—one that has led to a cost increase of
approximately 10% compared to when the Harmonized Sales Tax was
in place.1
CPABC recommendation:
• Implement input tax credits to stimulate business capital
investment.
Encouraging small businesses to grow
Small businesses made up 98% of all businesses in BC in 2014.4 The
government has long recognized the importance of small businesses
to the economy and has introduced various measures to support them,
including a low corporate tax rate. However, while this low corporate
tax rate minimizes the tax burden, i