September 24, 2003.
Mr. Claude L. DesRosiers
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly
Room 104, Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 1A2
Dear Mr. DesRosiers:
Further to my letter of September 20, 2003, enclosing the statement that I received from the Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party under subsection 4(1) of the Taxpayer Protection Act, 1999, (‘the Act’), in which I opined that the Leader’s statement met the requirements of the Act, I am pleased to enclose herewith an addendum thereto. I requested extraction of information in so far as it relates to personal income tax rates and corporate tax rates, as the detail respecting those taxes was included as an attachment to the statement in the form of campaign material that was not suitable for display on the website of Elections Ontario.
The addendum to the statement restates the effect of the proposal of the Party to refrain from implementing the reduction in the personal income tax rates scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2004, should it form the government following the election. At present the personal income tax rates are 6.05% and 9.15% depending upon the amount of personal income, and the scheduled reductions in the rates are to 5.65% and 8.85%, respectively. In addition, the current Fair Share Health Levy of 20% of the gross tax in excess of $3,685 set out in subsection 3(1) of the Income Tax Act that is to be discontinued after this year will be continued by the Party should it form the government after the election.
The addendum also restates the increase in annual revenues that the Leader expects will result from the proposed deemed increases in the personal income tax rates as approximately $1,005 million.
Finally, the current effective tax rate of 5.5% for small business provided for in the Corporations Tax Act will be maintained and not reduced to 5.0%. The expected revenues from this proposed measure are already included in the sum of $550 million referred to in my letter of September 20, 2003.
Yours very truly,
ORIGINAL SIGNED BY
John L. Hollins,
Chief Election Officer