I'm Geoff Trueman, the director of the business income tax division in the tax policy branch of the Department of Finance. I am responsible for the capital tax incentive.
This was a measure introduced in the 2007 budget to encourage provinces to eliminate or speed up the elimination of their capital taxes. These are taxes that are levied on the capital assets of a business, and they would be payable whether or not the business were profitable. From that point of view, they're seen as relatively damaging, from an economic perspective.
To return to your question, four provinces took up that offer: Quebec, Ontario, B.C., and Manitoba.
The way the incentive works is that provinces provide the government with a preliminary estimate of the amount of capital tax revenue foregone, based on their preliminary data for a given fiscal year. Then at a later date, when the provinces have final data for that year, consistent with the public accounts of that province, we adjust and make a final payment to the province.