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The Writers' Union of Canada is calling for a number of tax breaks for authors in its submission to the government’s consultation for framing a federal budget, to ease what it regards as increased industry pressure on writers.
The union argued that some work and financial burdens have been transferred from publishers to authors in recent years, increasing the financial risks associated with writing full-time. For instance, the report cited “in-house promotion and marketing [being] reduced in favour of author-generated touring and PR.”
But Carolyn Wood, executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers, disagreed with that point, saying authors’ marketing responsibilities have increased, but only in response to new demand from readers for a more personal connection through social media – a responsibility that publishers cannot fulfil. Publishers are still handling the bulk of the traditional marketing work, Wood said.
However, regardless of where the pressure is coming from, Wood agreed with the union’s call for more tax breaks: “Why in the world has Canadian policy not done this yet? This seems so sensible and so fair. Given that this kind of instrument is available to other sectors, why is it not available to artists?”
One tax break the union recommended was income averaging, where authors would pay a stable amount of income tax, determined by their average income over a three to five-year period. Income averaging, the union said, would stabilise authors’ earnings in a time when publishers are favouring single over multiple book deals. However, Wood said multi-book deals were never the norm in Canada, and are now less common, given the industry is changing so rapidly: these contracts are “too long a commitment for anybody”.
The union also suggested writers’ income from copyright earnings be taxed at lower rates, and for a tax exemption for federally-administered annual subsistence grants to Canadian authors, which range from CAD3,000 (USD2,600) to CAD25,000 (USD22,000) per year and are currently taxed at standard rates.
The union also noted that author earnings from the Canada Council for the Arts’ Public Lending Right (PLR) Program had been falling – it administers yearly payments to authors in exchange for public access to their books in libraries. But the union said that while the number of Canadian books eligible for the PLR programme has increased, the federal government has not increased the programme’s budget, causing average author payments to fall 10%.