What our company does is build software to solve some of the hardest compliance in the country. I look at the effect this would have in all the different pools that have to be tracked. You'd have pools from before legislation, or before the day they implement the legislation. Then you'd have pools from potentially small business income. Then you'd have high-rate income. I could share some of them, but there is just not enough time. There are too many.
If you want one very simple example, let's just take a company, such as mine, that's building up IP. That's an active asset I have, but one day, if that gets sold, it would be considered a passive asset. One day, when I have that capital gain, if I decide to sell the asset inside my company, would the first $50,000 be subject to the current rules, and then, for everything above that, could I be looking at those really high rates of 60% or 70%?
There are a lot of concerns, and there are a lot of transition issues that I don't think have been thought through. I do agree with CPA Canada about a comprehensive study and an economic study to see the impacts, because this passive income proposal is more about business than about tax.