TORONTO, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday announced a package of tax incentives at the first-ever Canada Investment Summit here, aiming to sharpen the country's competitive edge among Group of Seven (G7) nations and attract more business investment.
Carney highlighted Canada's strong fiscal foundation, noting that the country maintains the lowest net debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio in the G7.
Leveraging free trade agreements covering 1.5 billion consumers globally, Canada has become one of the world's most connected economies with the fiscal capacity to catalyze 1 trillion Canadian dollars (about 719 billion U.S. dollars) in new investment, he said.
Under the new "Productivity Mega Deduction" tax incentive, the proportion of eligible capital assets will expand significantly from roughly 15 percent to over 65 percent. Covered assets include optical fiber cables, mining properties, oil and gas pipelines, software, research and development, computer equipment, aircraft and vehicles, patents, rail tracks, bridges, and roads.
The federal government is also making immediate expensing permanent, allowing businesses to recover investment costs faster and reduce post-tax investment burdens.
With these measures, Canada's marginal effective tax rate on new business investment will fall from about 13 percent to 6.4 percent, less than half of that of the United States and the lowest among major economies worldwide, Carney said.
To further optimize key infrastructure, Carney also announced plans to open Canada's four largest airports to private investment through long-term concessions, seeking to enhance the efficiency and capacity of the national transportation network. ■
