Softwood Deal To Take Effect October 1st

Monday, September 18, 2006 02:40 PM

Another step has been taken on the road to making the softwood lumber agreement official.

Federal Minister of International Trade, David Emerson, has tabled a Notice of Ways and Means Motion in the House of Commons.

This type of motion has to be tabled and approved before the actual legislation can be introduced. This motion allows the Government to start collecting the duties and charges until the actual legislation passes.

The Motion announces that, as of October 1, 2006, the Government intends to impose a charge on softwood lumber exports to the United States and on refunds of certain duty deposits that had been paid to the United States. The charge on duty deposit refunds is the 19 % announced last week and will be imposed on companies which did not sign on with the softwood agreement. That will level the financial playing field with those who did sign on with the agreeement but will only get back 81 cents of every dollar they paid in duties.

Although there has been talk the Government was looking at developing some sort of tax break for companies now getting huge refunds, there has to date, been no official discussion of that plan.

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