Corporate Tax Rates

Question

A student is looking for historical data on federal corporate tax rates, ideally going back at least to 1980. All I've been able to
find so far are data on the amount of taxes paid, not the rates. Any ideas?

Answers

1. I found similar results to yours when searching StatsCan - aggregate amounts collected in taxes, but not the rates used.

I then visited Canada Revenue Agency's web site and found the rates back to
1998 at the following address:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/individuals/faq/taxrates-e.html

If you are looking for more historical data, perhaps they could be a good source as they are the ones dictating the tax rates?

2. The CCH's guide to "Income Tax in Canada" is very good. I have definitely found charts of historical rates within. Also, the Canadian Tax Foundation's "The National Finances" (1955-1994) and "Finances of the Nation" (1995 to 2001) also publish the rates. You can go year by year, or sometimes, they publish a chart with "selected" historical years. At any rate, they provide the federal and provincial corporate tax rates. [Be aware though: their index is not the greatest. Some years, you can find the topic under "corporate", some years it's under "corporations" or "business" or "tax rates", etc. At any rate, persevere, because those rates are there.] The publication is also now available online at: http://www.ctf.ca/tax101/tax101.asp.

3. Corporate tax rates, both federal and provincial are usually at the front of any annotated income tax act (e.g. Carswell, CCH). I seem to recall that one of them had a couple of year's worth, but at the worst, the student would have to look at each volume.