COVID-19 Update for November 10 2020 – 2:30pm

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s daily media briefing focused on tax relief for small businesses struggling to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Municipal Tax Relief Tool

Augmenting tax relief measures outlined in last week’s provincial budget, Premier Ford announced a new tool to give municipalities more flexibility in providing property tax reductions for small businesses, which Ford said the province will consider matching. This tool can be used starting in 2021 and, depending on the uptake, could save small businesses up to $385 million by 2022.

Employer Health Tax Exemption

Ford also noted that after doubling the employer health tax exemption earlier this year, the government is going to be making the change permanent, meaning over 30,000 small and medium sized businesses will no longer pay this tax.

City of Toronto Small Business Taxation Subclass

Toronto Mayor John Tory participated in today’s media event, and used the opportunity to announce that the City of Toronto is looking to create a small business taxation subclass for smaller companies. Tory said this could save small businesses up to thousands more a year, and would be revenue neutral for the City as it would be offset by measures offered by the Ontario government.