Capital Gains Taxes: What Are They and Why Are Canada’s Ultra Rich Freaking Out?

Capital gains – what are they and why is everyone talking about them?

This year’s federal budget, released on April 16, is rolling out changes to the way capital gains are taxed in order to make wealthy Canadians “pay their fair share.”

According to Finance Canada, these changes are targeted at the wealthiest of the wealthy – Canada’s top 0.13%, a group of approximately 40,000 Canadians with average incomes of 1.4 million dollars.

As one can imagine, the capital gains tax changes are already generating pushback from business lobby groups and right-wing think tanks who want to maintain the status quo and say the changes will damage the economy and disincentize investment.

But it’s also undeniable that the current capital gains tax rules disproportionately benefit people like CEOs and corporate executives, people who play the stock market or flip houses, because the way capital gains are taxed represents, if not a lucrative tax loophole, certainly a double-standard in how the tax code works.

DT Cochrane, Senior Economist with the Canadian Labour Congress, speaks with PressProgress Editor Luke LeBrun on this episode of sources to explain what capital gains taxes are and what these new changes mean.