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The Business Council of B.C. has not endorsed the idea of a tax holiday, but it is calling for an extension of the payment deadline through 2020 and a staged repayment plan that could extend to the end of 2021.
“With a very slow economic recovery and the enormous damage inflicted on many economic sectors by the virus and the measures taken to contain it, we believe there is a strong argument for extending the 2020 tax deferrals until the end of the year,” BCBC chief policy officer Jock Finlayson told Black Press Media July 16. “We are not recommending an extension beyond that point.”
With an uncertain future for the COVID-19 pandemic, which has plunged B.C. government revenues as spending has ramped up, accumulated debt is also a key factor.
“From an accounting perspective, the government is not ‘losing revenue’ with tax deferrals,” Finlayson said. “ Rather, it receives the money due with a delay. The only cost to the treasury is the interest paid on the extra short-term debt – which today is substantially less than one per cent. So there is very little impact on the size of the deficit.”
