{"id":457465,"date":"2026-02-06T11:16:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457465\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T11:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:16:23","slug":"c-d-howe-report-floats-tax-credit-for-small-employers-to-offer-retirement-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457465\/","title":{"rendered":"C.D. Howe report floats tax credit for small employers to offer retirement plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The authors estimate that about 9.1 million Canadian employees (about half of all workers in the country) have no workplace retirement plans.<\/p>\n

To help narrow the gap, the report proposes a targeted federal \u201cSmall Employer Retirement Plan Tax Credit\u201d to help reduce the cost barriers for small employers.<\/p>\n

At an estimated expenditure of $1 billion\u2013$2 billion over five years, the credit could expand coverage to 125,000\u2013500,000 workers by subsidizing plan set-up costs and employer contributions, cutting the cost of offering a plan by nearly half for the typical small or mid-sized employer. The estimated expenditure is \u201ca modest cost in the context of federal retirement spending,\u201d a release said.<\/p>\n

Budget 2025, released in November, projected a $78.3-billion total deficit<\/a> for the current fiscal year (to March 31, 2026). That figure is projected to steadily decrease to $56.6 billion by 2029\u201330.<\/p>\n

The proposed tax credit could help more Canadians build longer-term financial security and help small businesses offer more competitive compensation. As things stand, less than 19% of small and mid-sized employers with five to 499 employees offer retirement plans, relative to nearly half of comparable employers in the U.S., the C.D. Howe report said.<\/p>\n

Christine Van Cauwenberghe, head of financial planning with IG Wealth Management, said in a release on Tuesday that the decline of defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plans \u201chas fundamentally shifted the burden of retirement planning onto individuals in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n

IG Wealth Management\u2019s annual retirement study, conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights in January among 1,350 non-retired Canadians, found that less than half of the respondents \u2014 48% \u2014 had workplace pension plans.<\/p>\n

The study also found knowledge gaps. For example, about half of respondents said they didn\u2019t know how much annual income they\u2019d need in retirement.<\/p>\n

Further, few respondents had factored inflation, health\u2011care costs, market downturns or longevity risk into their retirement plans, the IG Wealth release said.<\/p>\n

To encourage low- and middle-income Canadians to obtain financial planning advice, a policy paper<\/a> commissioned by FP Canada and released three years ago had floated the idea of a refundable tax credit for such taxpayers accessing financial planning for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAddressing financial vulnerability and building financial resilience are multifaceted challenges that require an equally multifaceted approach to best support Canadians,\u201d FP Canada said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. \u201cAccordingly, we have been having discussions with decision-makers in Ottawa across the political spectrum on a tax credit proposal to improve access to professional financial planning services for low- and middle-income Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n

FP Canada president and CEO Tashia Batstone (and FP Canada consultants) reported meetings last year with policymakers and advisors in Ottawa, including staff from the Department of Finance and the Privy Council Office, according to the federal lobbyist registry.<\/p>\n

FP Canada\u2019s emailed statement said the certification body was \u201calso actively consulting with a range of other stakeholders, including financial institutions and consumer advocacy groups, on this proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The authors estimate that about 9.1 million Canadian employees (about half of all workers in the country) have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,187208,187446,133,131,132,8496,7712,11274,145995],"class_list":["post-457465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-db-pensions","tag-defined-contribution-pension-plan","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-retirement-income","tag-retirement-planning","tag-small-business","tag-tax-credits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}