Budget 2014 - The Integrity Budget

On February 11, 2014, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tabled the government's 2014 Federal Budget, in which the word "integrity" is used 50 times. Budget 2014 reinforces the trend of previous budgets by introducing further tax measures designed to improve the fairness of the tax system and to strengthen tax compliance, while also proposing a number of tax measures that are intended to reduce the tax compliance burden for businesses.

Although the budget contains a number of international, business and personal tax measures, it is predicted that over $1.5 billion in additional income tax revenues will be derived from five key proposals:

• Amendment of an existing anti-avoidance rule in the foreign accrual property income (FAPI) regime to address foreign captive insurance arrangements ($1 billion);