Proposed income tax measures
- Capital gains inclusion rate – The capital gains inclusion rate will be increased from one half to two thirds for corporations for capital gains realized on or after 25 June 2024. Transitional rules will be required to separately identify capital gains and losses realized before 25 June 2024 and those realized on or after that date.
- Accelerated capital cost allowance (CCA) – The CCA rate will be increased from 4% to 10% on a temporary basis for eligible new purpose-built rental projects for which construction begins on or after 16 April 2024, and before 2031, and that are available for use before 2036. Eligible property for these purposes includes new purpose-built rental housing that is a residential complex with at least four private apartment units, or 10 private rooms or suites, and in which at least 90% of residential units are held for long-term rental.
Property in CCA classes 44 (patents or the rights to use patented information for a limited or unlimited period), 46 (data network infrastructure equipment and related systems software) and 50 (general-purpose electronic data-processing equipment and systems software) acquired on or after 16 April 2024 and that becomes available for use before 1 January 2027 will be eligible for an immediate expensing of 100% in the first year, which would be available only for the year in which the property becomes available for use. Property that becomes available for use after 2026 and before 2028 will continue to benefit from the existing accelerated investment incentive.
- Clean electricity investment tax credit (ITC) – Budget 2024 provides details on the clean electricity ITC that was first announced in Budget 2023. The clean electricity ITC is a 15% refundable tax credit that will be available to taxable Canadian corporations and certain other eligible Canadian corporations. Eligible properties related to the clean electricity ITC include:
- Certain equipment used to generate electricity from solar, wind or water energy
- Concentrated solar energy equipment, used to generate electricity
- Equipment used to generate electricity, or both electricity and heat, from nuclear fission
- Equipment used for the purpose of generating electricity, or both electricity and heat, solely from geothermal energy, but excluding any equipment that is part of a system that extracts fossil fuels for sale
- Equipment that is part of a system used to generate electricity, or both electricity and heat, from specified waste materials
- Stationary electricity storage equipment and equipment used for pumped hydroelectric energy storage, but excluding equipment that uses any fossil fuel in operation
- Equipment that is part of an abated natural gas energy system that uses fuel, all or substantially all of which is natural gas, to generate electricity, or both electricity and heat
- Equipment and structures used to transmit or manage electrical energy that primarily originates in, or is destined for, another province or territory
Capital expenditures to refurbish existing facilities may also be qualifying expenditures. Subject to a limited exception, compliance for property inclusion must be satisfied annually. Recapture rules will generally apply over a 10-year period (or a 20-year period in the case of eligible natural gas energy systems) in proportion to the fair market value of the property converted to ineligible use, exported from Canada or disposed of.
Certain labour requirements must be met to receive the 15% rate. If these requirements are not met, the credit is reduced to 5%. The clean electricity ITC could be claimed in addition to the Atlantic ITC, but generally not with any other ITC.
The clean electricity ITC will apply to eligible property that is acquired and available for use on or after 16 April 2024, and before 2035, provided it has not been used for any purpose before its acquisition, and is not part of a project that began construction before 28 March 2023.
- Clean technology manufacturing ITC: Polymetallic extraction and processing – Budget 2023 proposed the clean technology manufacturing ITC, which provides a 30% refundable tax credit for companies investing in eligible property that is acquired and available for use on or after 1 January 2024.
Eligible activities for this ITC, as defined under draft legislative proposals, include qualifying mineral activities producing all or substantially all qualifying materials (i.e., lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, rare earth elements and graphite). Budget 2024 proposes to clarify that production of a qualifying material may occur at projects engaged in the production of multiple metals. In addition, the value of qualifying materials would be used as a metric when assessing the extent to which property is used or is expected to be used for qualifying mineral activities, producing qualifying materials.
The budget also proposes that eligible expenditures will include investments in eligible property used in a qualifying mineral activity, in which 50% or more of the financial value of the output comes from qualifying materials at mine or well sites, including tailing ponds and mills. Third-party attestation from an arm’s length qualified engineer or geoscientist is required.
The budget also proposes a safe harbour exception from the recapture rules that may apply within a 10-year period following acquisition, if a property is converted to use in a non-qualifying activity. Details for the safe harbour rule will be provided at a later date.
These changes will apply for property that is acquired and becomes available for use on or after 1January 2024.
- New electric vehicle supply chain ITC – A new 10% electric vehicle (EV) supply chain ITC is introduced on the cost of buildings used in key segments of the EV supply chain. The ITC is for businesses that invest in Canada across three supply chain segments (EV assembly, EV battery production and cathode active material production). To qualify for the ITC, the taxpayer must claim the clean technology manufacturing ITC in all three of the specified segments, or two out of three of the specified segments and hold at least a qualifying minority interest in an unrelated corporation that claims the clean technology manufacturing ITC in the third segment. The EV supply chain ITC will apply to property that is acquired and becomes available for use on or after 1 January 2024. The credit will be reduced to 5% for 2033 and 2034 and will no longer in be in effect after 2034.
- Canada carbon rebate for small businesses – Budget 2024 proposes to return a portion of fuel charge proceeds from a province via the new Canada carbon rebate for small businesses, an automatic, refundable tax credit for eligible businesses, sized in proportion to the number of persons they employ in the applicable province (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador).
- Interest deductibility limits: purpose-built rental housing – The exemption from application of the excessive interest and financing expenses limitation (EIFEL) rules for certain public-private partnership infrastructure projects is expanded for certain interest and financing expenses incurred before 1 January 2036, in respect of arm’s length financing used to build or acquire eligible purpose-built rental housing in Canada (as defined above under “Accelerated capital cost allowance”). This change would apply to taxation years that begin on or after 1 October 2023 (i.e., consistent with broader EIFEL amendments).
- Synthetic equity arrangements – In order to simplify the synthetic equity arrangements rules for dividends received on or after 1 January 2025, the tax-indifferent investor exception (where the taxpayer establishes that no tax-indifferent investor has all or substantially all of the economic exposure in respect of the share) and the synthetic equity arrangements traded on a derivatives exchange exception will be removed from the anti-avoidance rule.
- Mutual fund corporations – For taxation years that begin after 2024, a corporation will be precluded from qualifying as a mutual fund corporation where it is controlled by or for the benefit of a corporate group (including a corporate group that consists of any combination of corporations, individuals, trusts and partnerships that do not deal with each other at arm’s length). Exceptions will be provided to ensure that the measure does not adversely affect mutual fund corporations that are widely held pooled investment vehicles.
- Mandatory disclosure rules (MDRs) – The failure to file an information return in respect of a reportable or notifiable transaction under the MDRs will be removed, as of 22 June 2023, from the scope of the general penalty under section 238 of the Income Tax Act, given that the MDRs already contain specific penalties that apply in these circumstances. Under section 238 of the Income Tax Act, a person who fails to file or make a return or comply with certain specified rules is guilty of an offence and liable to penalties up to $25,000 and imprisonment up to a year.
- Non-compliance with information requests – Several amendments to the information gathering provisions in the Income Tax Act are introduced.
- Notice of non-compliance: The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will be allowed to issue a new type of notice to a person that has not complied with a requirement or notice to provide assistance or information. A penalty is imposed on a person that has been issued a notice of non-compliance of $50 for each day that the notice is outstanding, to a maximum of $25,000.
- Questioning under oath: The CRA is allowed to include in a requirement or notice that any required information (oral or written) or documents be provided under oath or affirmation.
- Compliance orders: A penalty of 10% of the aggregate tax payable by a taxpayer is imposed when the CRA obtains a compliance order against a taxpayer and the tax owing is in excess of $50,000. The CRA is also allowed to seek a compliance order when a person has failed to comply with a requirement to provide foreign-based information or documents.
- Stopping the reassessment limitation clock: The “stop the clock” rules will be amended to provide that they apply when a taxpayer seeks judicial review of any requirement or notice issued to the taxpayer (or a person not dealing at arm’s length with the taxpayer) by the CRA in relation to the audit and enforcement process or during any period that a notice of non-compliance is outstanding.
Other tax statutes (such as the Excise Tax Act (GST/HST), Excise Act and Select Luxury Items Tax Act), which have provisions similar to the Income Tax Act, will also similarly be amended. These measures will come into force on Royal Assent of the enacting legislation.
- Avoidance of tax debts – A supplementary rule is introduced to strengthen the tax debt anti-avoidance rule, which will apply if: (i) there has been a transfer of property from a tax debtor to another person; (ii) as part of the same transaction or series of transactions, there has been a separate transfer of property from a person other than the tax debtor to a transferee that does not deal at arm’s length with the tax debtor; and (iii) one of the purposes of the transaction or series is to avoid joint and several, or solidary, liability. Where these conditions are met, the property transferred by the tax debtor would be deemed to have been transferred to the transferee for the purposes of the tax debt avoidance rule. Also, the tax debt avoidance planning penalty (i.e., the lesser of 50% of the tax avoided or $100,000 plus any amount the person, or a related person, is entitled to receive or obtain in respect of the planning activity) is extended to tax debt avoidance planning that is subject to the proposed supplementary rule. Finally, taxpayers who participate in tax debt avoidance planning will be jointly and severally, or solidarily, liable for the full amount of the avoided tax debt, including any portion that has effectively been retained by a planner. Similar amendments would be made to comparable provisions in other federal tax statutes.
- Manipulation of bankrupt status – The exception to the debt forgiveness rules for bankrupt corporations and the loss restriction rule applicable to bankrupt corporations will be repealed for bankruptcy proceedings that commence on or after 16 April 2024. This change will subject bankrupt corporations to the general rules that apply to other corporations whose commercial debts are forgiven. The bankruptcy exception to the debt forgiveness rules will remain in place for individuals.
International tax measures
- Crypto-asset reporting framework – Budget 2024 proposes to implement a Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) in Canada to impose a new annual reporting requirement on entities and individuals that are resident in Canada, or that carry on business in Canada, and that provide business services effectuating exchange transactions in crypto-assets, including crypto exchanges, crypto-asset brokers and dealers, and operators of crypto-asset automated teller machines. This measure will apply to the 2026 and subsequent calendar years.
- Common reporting standard – Budget 2024 proposes to amend the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), a global standard developed and endorsed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the automatic exchange of financial information for tax purposes, to (i) include specified electronic money products and central bank digital currencies within the scope of the CRS, (ii) ensure effective coordination between the CRS and the CARF, (iii) limit instances of duplicative reporting between the two frameworks, (iv) require additional information be reported in respect of financial accounts and account holders, (v) strengthen the due diligence procedures followed by financial institutions, (vi) remove Labour-Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations (LSVCCs) from the list of non-reporting financial institutions and treat a non-registered account held in an LSVCC as an excluded account provided that annual contributions to the account do not exceed US$50,000, and (vii) clarify certain aspects of the anti-avoidance provision of the CRS. These measures will apply to the 2026 and subsequent calendar years.
- Withholding for non-resident service providers – Budget 2024 proposes to allow the CRA to waive, over a specified period, the requirement to withhold 15% of a payment to a non-resident person for services provided in Canada if the non-resident would not be subject to Canadian income tax in respect of the payments because of a tax treaty between its country of residence and Canada, or the income is exempt income from international shipping or from operating an aircraft in international traffic. Currently, non-resident service providers with no Canadian tax liability may only apply to the CRA for an advance waiver of the withholding requirement for a specific planned transaction. The new measure will come into force on Royal Assent of the enacting legislation.
As part of Budget 2024, Finance also provided an update on the most recent developments and upcoming implementation steps regarding the OECD recommendations on Pillar One and Pillar Two.
- Pillar One: reallocation of taxing rights – While Canada will continue to work towards the finalization of a multilateral treaty to bring the Pillar One rules into effect, it is moving ahead with its plan to enact a Digital Services Tax, which is currently included in Bill C-59 before Parliament. The tax would begin to apply for calendar year 2024, covering taxable revenues earned since 1 January 2022.
- Pillar Two: global minimum tax – Following consultations last summer on the draft Global Minimum Tax Act that was released in August 2023, the government intends to soon introduce this legislation in Parliament.
Tax measures for individuals and trusts
Personal income tax rates
There are no personal income tax rate or tax bracket changes in this budget. The brackets will continue to be indexed for inflation.
See Table B for the 2024 federal personal income tax rates and brackets.
Table B: Federal personal income tax rates