Support for Canadian Journalism Tax Measures: Recent Legislative Proposals

  • June 05, 2020
  • Kevin Yip and Devon LaBuik

The 2019 Federal Budget introduced three income tax measures intended to support Canadian journalism organizations. These include:

  • a 25% refundable tax credit for certain journalism organizations in respect of salary and wages payable to eligible newsroom employees (the “labour tax credit”);
  • a 15% non-refundable personal income tax credit for individuals that pay for a digital news subscription with certain journalism organizations after 2019 and before 2025 (the “digital news subscription tax credit”); and
  • changes to allow a journalism organization to register as a Registered Journalism Organization (“RJO”), which is a tax-exempt entity that is a qualified donee for purposes of the income tax charitable donation rules.[1]

A journalism organization that seeks to benefit from the above support measures must be designated a qualified Canadian journalism organization (a “QCJO”) by the Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA”) as well as meet the specific requirements of each tax measure.

On April 17, 2020, the Department of Finance released legislative proposals (the “Proposals”) to amend these tax measures (you can find the Proposals here). The Proposals will come into force retroactively on the same dates as the coming into force dates of the original measures introduced in the 2019 Federal Budget.