New changes to the federal capital gains tax will take effect less than two weeks from now.
The federal government says the ultra wealthy will pay a little more tax to help Canada’s middle class. The tax will increase from 50 percent to 66 percent on capital gains above 250 thousand dollars. According to the government’s own numbers, More than 28 million Canadians are not expected to have any capital gains income at all. It says 0.13 percent of Canadians, those with an average income of about 1.4 million dollars a year, are expected to pay more in personal income tax as a result of this change.
Many farm groups are concerned about the impact of the change to families wanting to pass on their farms to their children. Scott Gerbrandt is the president of the Canadian Cattle Youth Council, made up of young ranchers looking to take over from their parents in a few years. “The biggest concern from us is that we just haven’t had enough time to to get a proper consultation with producers that we represent, and to work with accounting firms that we would typically rely on, to get expert opinions on stuff like this With the budget ’24 being announced in April and this implementation being proposed for June 25th, it just simply not enough time for us to get our head around how big of an impact this is going to have. Being a representative of the Youth Council here, wondering specifically how this might affect intergenerational farm transitions within a family, or even outside of a family.”
Gerbrandt does see optimism in young farmers that are looking at taking over farms from their parents. “I would say there’s a lot of optimism in the industry. Prices are really strong, which is a big benefit. That alone has changed in the last couple of years, so that’s working in our favor. We’re looking at a herd rebuild in the country, really in North America. t=That’s going to going to create some demand here for the next several years for cow/calf producers. In general, I guess, being involved in some of CCA’s youth programs, you get to have conversations with producers from across the country and it is quite optimistic,”
-With Files From Dean Thorpe-
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