Universal Child Care Tax Benefit Reform in Canada - Assignment Example

Universal child care tax benefit: Varying tax treatments are often ed to various components. This paper hence analyses the Canada’s universal child care tax benefit as a case study with regards to this matter. Under Canada’s socio-Economic operational Plan, the government proposed an increase on the existing Child Care Benefits mainly for children below six years, and expansion of such benefits to children of up to the age of17. Initially, the government had introduced a childcare tax benefit whereby families with an average amount of $100 every month for any child below the age of 6 years.

It currently offer direct government support to an approximate number of about 1.7 million families (Formative Evaluation of the Universal Child Care Benefit, 2012).The Government is thus proposing the enhancement of such benefit through provision of $160/month for each and every eligible child. The total amount that can be received by a parent in a year is roughly at an average of $1,920. On the other hand, there has been an introduction of another benefit of around $60 /month entirely for children who are aged between 6 and 17 years.

  The enhanced child benefits structure aims towards replacing the present Child Tax Credit benefits. There has also been some sort of controversy regarding the eligibility of the child tax benefits. The basic guideline is that, the major beneficiaries should be families with the minor children. To qualify for this, there has to be the aspect of completing a specified Application form. Completion of that form ensures that all the records are safely kept for the sake of subsequent analysis (Formative Evaluation of the Universal Child Care Benefit, 2012).

For the past decade, international organizations and industrialized countries have shown increased interest with regards to government involvements in child care. The concept behind this fact is that; there is a general consideration of subsidizing child care programs. This tax measure often affects the entire citizens. However, most empirical studies put greater focus on the preschool children and the systems of the means-tested transfers. Based on the investigation regarding the effects of the Canadian child care universal reforms on the parent’s participation in labor force; it worked towards shedding some light since a group with younger children had varying responses from their counterparts who had older children.

By use of a fixed-effect instrumentation and approach for the usage of child care units for guarding against the endogeneity challenges, relatively strong labor force participation impacts were realized among both single and traditional mothers, but with no response amongst the fathers. This detailed example hence shows out the fact that; mothers are the most vulnerable groups who are directly affected with these forms of tax measures. This measure generally plays a very pivotal role within the entire society.

This is based on its distributive properties that manifest the aspects of mutual equality and understandings within each and every family set-up. With regards to this study, it can be concluded that this tax measure tend promote some sense of horizontal equality in one way or the other. This mainly occurs when it comes to the gender-based issues. In the real sense, it brings equality amongst both men and women in the societal set-up. The only slight modification that should be effected on this child benefits tax measure should be on the aspects of ensuring massive mobilization so as to create awareness amongst all parents, including the procedures that should be followed during the application process.

Appendix: Data Analysis regarding Federal Tax Benefits: The above documentations and analysis with regards to the Universal child care benefits, and Canada being the case study basically sets its basis on the data analysis shown below. It is a graphical presentation that relates the income levels against the child tax benefits at the annual basis. On the other hand, the benefits at zero income levels are taken to be at around $341. Works Cited Formative Evaluation of the Universal Child Care Benefit: Final Report.

Ottawa, Ont: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2012. Internet resource.