Regina, June 5, 2023 - On behalf of over 4,000 small businesses in Saskatchewan, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has written a letter to Saskatchewan’s Minister of Finance, urging the province to freeze the small business tax rate at 0% to give more businesses a chance to recover.
In 2020, the province reduced the small business tax rate from 2% to 0% with plans to increase to 1% on July 1, 2022 and back to 2% on July 1, 2023. Small business owners appreciated the Saskatchewan government extending the 0% tax rate for an additional year as part of the province’s affordability plan announced last summer. However, an increase from 0% to 1% is now set to begin on July 1, 2023 and the rate will further increase to the original tax rate of 2%, as of July 1, 2024.
“Given all the challenges small business owners are currently facing, namely heavy debt loads, skyrocketing inflation, increased input costs, and rising interest rates, cost relief is becoming increasingly urgent,” said Brianna Solberg, CFIB provincial affairs director. “With a projected $1 billion surplus in this year’s provincial budget, we would have hoped to see affordability measures announced for small businesses such as holding the small business tax rate at 0%.”
According to CFIB’s latest Monthly Business Barometer® Saskatchewan small business owners are now sitting near the bottom of the optimism scale compared to other provinces. While business owners in Saskatchewan had been reporting consistently higher levels of optimism than those across the country for the past several months, Saskatchewan’s small business confidence levels saw a dramatic drop in May.
This is not necessarily surprising considering only half of Saskatchewan small businesses are back to normal, pre-pandemic revenues while business input costs continue to rise, and many are still staring down significant pandemic-related debt.
Our latest survey results indicate that the average Saskatchewan small business owner is carrying around $63,000 in debt. Many worry whether they will ever be able to pay this back, or if they should simply close their doors for good - especially with the federal government’s CEBA loan repayment deadline coming in December of this year.
Therefore, CFIB is urging the Saskatchewan government to avoid adding to the list of added costs for small businesses and relieve cost pressures by freezing the small business tax rate at 0%.
Dariya Baiguzhiyeva, CFIB
647-464-2814
public.affairs@cfib.ca
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is Canada’s largest association of small and medium-sized businesses with 97,000 members across every industry and region, including 4,000 in Saskatchewan. CFIB is dedicated to increasing business owners’ chances of success by driving policy change at all levels of government, providing expert advice and tools, and negotiating exclusive savings. Learn more at cfib.ca.