PwC: Canadian tax system breaks into Top 10 global ranking

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

This year Canada places 8th overall when it comes to its ease of paying taxes for businesses, according to Paying Taxes 2013 – a joint study from PwC, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that looks at tax regimes in 185 economies around the world.

“Efforts to make Canada more tax-competitive and create a business-friendly climate are evident with the recent reforms initiated by the provincial and federal governments,” says Jason Safar, Partner, Tax Services, PwC. “Canada’s current tax laws have attractive tax regimes, which impact all companies – in particular small-medium sized domestic companies. With companies benefitting from a special reduced corporate income tax rate, this not only results in a lower Total Tax Rate, but leads to a decline in the number of hours spent by companies to fulfil tax obligations.”

Paying Taxes 2013 –  is a joint study from PwC, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that looks at tax regimes in 185 economies around the world. Paying Taxes 2013 measures the overall ease of paying taxes for a hypothetical small to medium-sized domestic business by assessing three indicators: number of tax payments per year; time taken to compile returns and submit tax payments; and by calculating companies’ total tax liability as a percentage of pre-tax profits.

Internationally, more economies have focused on introducing electronic systems in the last two years. Central Asia and Eastern Europe has been the biggest reformer over the eight years of the study and the introduction of electronic filing and reducing tax rates have been key to the reform process in these regions.