SASKATOON – A new tax incentive for inventors and innovators will be introduced by the Saskatchewan Party if they win re-election in April’s provincial contest. Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall made the announcement Friday morning at a campaign stop in Saskatoon.
He proposed cutting the corporate income tax rate from 12 to six per cent on revenue gained by companies from intellectual property or patents.
Wall said if inventors and entrepreneurs come to “Saskatchewan and undertake that commercialization and create jobs here, what they will receive is basically protection from that high rate of taxes.”
“We’ll take corporate income tax rate from twelve to six per cent for up to fifteen years until they can get that market commercialized, creating opportunities here in the province,” said Wall.
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Wall referred to the proposal as the “Saskatchewan Commercial Innovation Incentive” and said it would take a year to implement. The proposal is also known as a “patent box,” according to Wall.
“When we implement it if re-elected, we’ll be the only place in North America that has such a patent box, that has protection,” said Wall.
A media release accompanying the announcement pointed to a number of sectors that could benefit from the move, including agriculture, manufacturing, energy and mining.
“We need to make sure that we’re focused on the economy in this election campaign, because it pays for everything else,” said Wall.
“We need people working in this province with the ability, the economic freedom to pay taxes because those taxes support the education that we want, the health care that we want, the social services that we want.”