Mr. Speaker, to have an economy that works for everyone, we need a tax system that is fair and we need all Canadians to pay their fair share. After all, the taxes we pay build the infrastructure that gets our goods to market. Taxes help create good, well-paying jobs and they fund the programs and services that enable Canadians to have a decent standard of living and an equal chance to succeed.
For the past three years, tax fairness has been a cornerstone of the government's promise to grow a stronger middle class. To that end, one of the government's first actions was to cut taxes for the middle class and to raise them on the top 1%. This measure is leaving more than nine million Canadians with more money in their pockets.
The government has also acted to support small businesses in Canada. They are, after all, the key driver of our economy, accounting for 70% of all private sector jobs. To enable small businesses in Canada to reinvest in their companies and create jobs, the government reduced the small business tax rate from 10.5% to 10% this year. As of January 2019, this rate will be further reduced to just 9%. Once this reduction to the rate of 9% is fully in effect, the average Canadian small business will have an additional $1,600 per year to reinvest in the business and to help the Canadian economy to thrive even further.
As our economy grows, we need to ensure that the benefits of that growth are felt by more and more people. This means ensuring that more people have the opportunity to work and to earn a good living from that work. That is why the bill we are considering today takes a major step toward fulfilling the government's commitment to ensure that all Canadians receive the tax benefits and credits to which they are entitled, so that they and their families have the resources they need to succeed.
In budget 2018, the government introduced the new Canada workers benefit, CWB. This is a strengthened version of the working income tax benefit and will put more money in the pockets of low-income workers, giving people a little extra help they need as they transition to work. The new CWB will encourage more people to join the workforce and will offer help to more than two million Canadians who are working hard to join the middle class. It will also raise some 70,000 Canadians out of poverty by 2020.
Starting in 2019, the government proposes to make it easier for people to access the benefit they have earned by enabling the Canada Revenue Agency to calculate the CWB for any tax filer who has not claimed it. That would make the process automatic. Allowing the CRA to automatically provide the benefit to eligible filers would be especially helpful to people with reduced mobility, people who live far from service locations and people without Internet access. With the passage of the bill, an estimated 300,000 additional low-income workers would receive the new Canada workers benefit for the 2019 tax year.
By improving access to the Canada workers benefit and providing for more generous benefits under the program through the first Budget Implementation Act of 2018, the government proposes to invest almost $1 billion more in new funding for this benefit in 2019, compared to the year before. This will be a very good investment since we estimate that the new and enhanced Canada workers benefit will directly benefit more than two million working Canadians. It can then contribute to our economy even further.
Mr. Speaker, another important part of the bill is the measures it contains to improve tax fairness in Canada. In this budget implementation act, no. 2, the government is following through on a commitment to allow charities full ability to pursue their charitable purposes by engaging in non-partisan political activities and the development of public policy. Charities play a key role in Canadian society and provide a valuable service to all Canadians. They also provide perspectives that enrich public debate and help shape the formulation of public policy.
Under these proposed changes, charities would have a much broader scope to engage in public policy advocacy that advances their charitable aims. The proposed amendments accomplish this by removing the existing limits on non-partisan political activities from the Income Tax Act, including quantitative limits.
In the first Budget Implementation Act of 2018, the government stood up for our men and women in uniform. We extended tax relief automatically to all members of the Canadian Armed Forces and police officers deployed on international operational missions, determined by the Minister of National Defence, regardless of the level of risk associated with their mission.
In recent years, Canadian police officers have increasingly been deployed on international missions that are independent of missions overseen by the Department of National Defence. Accordingly, in this act, the government is now proposing to allow the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to determine international police missions that would qualify for the tax deduction for Canadian Armed Forces members and police officers. Allowing international police missions to qualify for the tax deduction would ensure the same tax treatment for Canadian police officers deployed on international peace and stability missions as for those who are internationally deployed on missions determined by the Minister of National Defence.
I would now like to talk about other measures from this bill that would improve tax fairness by ensuring that everyone pays their fair share. The bill contains an amendment to the Income Tax Act that would preserve the integrity of Canada's tax base by ensuring that non-residents cannot use partnerships or trusts for tax planning techniques to inappropriately extract profits from their Canadian subsidiaries free of Canadian withholding tax. No one should be able to inappropriately extract profits from Canadian corporations tax-free and move the money offshore.
It is also known that taxpayers have engaged in aggressive tax planning in which they artificially combine their investments or activities with those of other taxpayers into one offshore entity, in order to inappropriately reduce or defer paying Canadian income tax. Taxpayers who use such tax planning strategies seek to artificially avoid having legal control of their investments or activities or to artificially satisfy a requirement for a minimum number of employees. This act proposes two new amendments that close two separate loopholes and ensure that the taxpayers' investment income is reported accurately. By restricting this tax planning, we would ensure that everyone gets appropriately taxed on their investment income and activities and contributes to Canadian society.
These amendments are directed at aggressive tax planning used to avoid or defer Canadian tax. Their aim is not to interfere with legitimate investments, but to prevent unjustified tax avoidance and to clarify the intended policy for both taxpayers and tax practitioners.
Finally, tax fairness is a key pillar of a growing economy. It instills confidence in Canadians and helps to create opportunities for everyone. The proposed tax measures contained in this legislation are important steps in the government's plan for achieving tax fairness and ensuring opportunities for all Canadians to succeed. I urge my honourable colleagues in this House to support this bill.