The Interview: Amin Mawani
Death and taxes: two unavoidable parts of life. While most of us try not to think too much about taxes (or think of ways to pay less of them), one Schulich professor has made the study of taxes and taxation policy his life’s work.
Join us for a conversation with Schulich Professor Amin Mawani (Professor of Taxation) about taxes, the tax code and his recent award from the Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA).
Introduction
Hi Amin! Please, tell us a bit about yourself!
Good afternoon! Thanks for the opportunity to chat!
My research training is in taxation and the impact of taxes on broad-based business and personal financial decisions. My initial training was in finance and accounting. As time went on, I pursued a broader based graduate research training in economics, law and accountancy so I could address research questions from multidisciplinary perspectives. This has explained some of my research productivity as I participate in and contribute to conferences on tax accounting, tax law, and public economics.
What made you decide to focus on taxation as a field of study?
In pursuing a theoretically intensive PhD, I chose a field that was highly applied that would allow me to practice as a tax and economics consultant in the private sector (I wanted to remain diversified and keep all my career options open). I chose a field where the benefits of my consulting advice would be easily assessed as simply being the taxes I could save a taxpayer client. I believe that this “advisory role” approach has enhanced my students’ learning of tax planning in the classroom.
Investing in detailed knowledge about institutional tax law also allowed me to implement better research designs in my studies, which often resulted in sharper results and more relevant insights into tax practice.
In addition to your PhD, you also hold a law degree from Osgoode in tax law. What was it that drew you to academia and towards research?
My LL.M in Taxation from Osgoode Hall Law School was completed during my first sabbatical here at Schulich in the early 2000. This training allows me to read and understand the Income Tax Act and court case precedents with relatively more ease.
I was an Adjunct Professor of Taxation at Osgoode Hall Law School for 16 years between 2008 and 2024. During this time, I taught Managerial Tax Planning to students pursuing their LL.M and JD degrees in taxation and served on various PhD committees at Osgoode.
The Importance of Tax Planning (And Why It Should Be Simplified)
So, you have, in a way, theoretical and practical experience as it relates to tax policy and taxation planning. From your perspective, why would tax planning be important to me if I don’t run a business (besides keeping more money in my pocket!)?
Tax planning opportunities arise when taxpayers have a choice of structuring their business affairs in two or more ways that accomplish the same non-tax objectives, but trigger different amounts of taxes. Taxes are a cost of doing business, and taxpayers will attempt to minimize them.
The existence of tax planning opportunities motivates the role and need for tax policy that should attempt to tax identical cash flows equally whenever possible and thereby reduce tax planning opportunities and enhance equity among taxpayers with similar economic incomes.
If you’re just an average person, looking to file your taxes, the tax code can be confusing and hard to interpret sometimes – hence, the need for “experts”. From a policy perspective, the tax code should offer reasonable simplicity for compliance, and ideally not require taxpayers to spend significant resources on seeking advice or pursuing tax planning opportunities. Instead, these taxpayers should remain focused on (efficiently) pursuing their non-tax objectives such as growing their business or growing their financial net worth.
My earlier research was on taxation of executive compensation. Some forms of compensation such as employee stock options are taxed at half the rates compared to salaries. Compensation consulting practices have grown to exploit these differences in tax treatments by recommending pay packages that allow executives to retain more after-tax compensation for the same level of outlays by the employers.
So, I’m guessing that you think that much of the tax planning system should be simplified?
In an ideal productive society, tax accountants and tax lawyers who advise clients on tax planning can be viewed as deadweight loss, and their roles should ideally be minimized.
What can you tell us about your recent publications?
During Covid-19, I embarked on evaluating the different government support programs offered to businesses and individuals. This was made possible with two major Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants during the pandemic.
Outside of academia, I’ve written several op-eds for The Globe and Mail during theCovid-19 outbreak. The first one (written very early in the pandemic when there were only three reported cases of Covid-19 in Canada) outlined how businesses could plan for a COVID-19 disruption.
Did your “how to guide” so early in the pandemic turn out to be prescient?
My op-ed built on my observations and findings from the 2003 SARS epidemic. It advised businesses to plan for a significant decline in both the demand for and the supply of non-essential goods, as consumers and employees prioritized their well-being rather than pursue their normal consumption and production activities. A simultaneous decline in both supply and demand would shrink the economy exponentially more compared to just a decline in supply (arising from an airline strike, for example) or just a decline in demand (arising from higher tariffs imposed on Canadian exports, for example).
I published additional op-eds in 2020 and 2021 that critiqued aspects of the Covid-related subsidy programs instituted by the Canada Revenue Agency, and proposed changes. Hopefully, all these Covid-19 related publications will serve as guidance if and when Canada experiences future pandemics.
In 2023, I co-authored an article in the Canadian Tax Journal that offered empirical evidence on how some firms receiving the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) were contemporaneously increasing dividend payouts to their shareholders. We concluded with a policy recommendation that bailouts during future pandemics should restrict subsidy recipients from paying out larger contemporaneous dividends to their shareholders.
Anything more recently?
Last year, I published another study in the Canadian Tax Journal that recommended that Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF)-holders with balances up to $200,000 (which incidentally make up about 75% of all RRIF-holders) be exempt from mandatory annual withdrawals upon reaching age 71. This finding was based on arguments that taxpayers with such modest balances would need to withdraw amounts for day-to-day consumption anyway, and imposing mandatory annual withdrawals for this group would just add unnecessary complexity without safeguarding any substantial tax revenues for the government. Such modest savers are not likely to postpone withdrawals just to pursue estate planning objectives such as leaving the tax-sheltered amounts to their beneficiaries upon death.
This publication generated a fair amount of attention.
How so?
Rob Carrick, a columnist with The Globe and Mail, dedicated an entire column to this study, describing the research as a “tax-smart plan.” My research also served as a basis for the Securities and Investment Management Association (SIMA)’s policy recommendation in their August 2025 Policy Advocacy Report (page 24) titled Canada’s Retirement Puzzle: Private Savings Must be at the Centre of Reform. Perhaps this recommendation will be adopted into legislation by the Federal Department of Finance.
Recent Awards & Recognition
I think that’s a pretty good segue to the next topic.
I’d like to talk about your recent recognition by the Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA). In June of 2025, you were awarded the inaugural Thomas Schneider Community Impact Research Award for a paper that was first published in 2008! What can you tell us about this award?
The award was a pleasant surprise and the research leading to our publication (co-authored with Alan Macnaughton from the University of Waterloo) was a lot of fun.
Our publication was selected from hundreds of accounting articles published over the past 25 years in accounting and tax journals, so winning this inaugural award was a real honour. As researchers, we hope our work makes a difference beyond academia, and it’s gratifying to see this study recognized for its real-world impact.
Why do you think that your paper won? What made it stand out?
I believe our paper won the award because the trail from the publication to Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) change in tax interpretation was direct, immediate, and traceable, and its impact on tax revenues and tax planning was material.
Our award-winning study was published shortly after Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) were introduced in Canada. At the time, CRA guidance and longstanding technical interpretations from 1995 and 1996 allowed employee stock options to be valued at their intrinsic value — meaning out-of-the-money options were effectively valued at zero.
Our research summarized the Tax Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal’s interpretations on option valuation over time while offering alternative valuation models from finance theory and practice.
Our research pointed out that, under the court’s interpretation, an infinite number of options could theoretically be contributed to a TFSA without violating the $5,000 annual limit then in effect. This loophole risked enabling taxpayers to permanently shelter substantial gains from tax — a result that would have undermined fairness and cost the government significant tax revenue.
What happened after you published the paper?
Our study presumably helped financial institutions decline deposits of employee stock options by executives into their TFSAs.
On the legislative side, our research sparked an almost immediate reaction from the CRA. Shortly after the paper’s publication, CRA officials reached out and clarified that their earlier statements had been misinterpreted.
In a highly unusual move, the CRA invited me and my co-author, Alan Macnaughton, to publish a follow-up article on its behalf, clarifying its position for the tax practitioner community. That follow-up appeared as: “Addendum — CRA: Employee Stock Options and TFSAs” in Canadian Tax Highlights in 2009.
The CRA emphasized that the use of intrinsic value in earlier technical interpretations was merely illustrative. The agency directed taxpayers to instead use a valuation method “appropriate in the circumstances,” such as the Black-Scholes model, but not intrinsic value.
Does something like this normally happen?
Not to my knowledge! Asking the authors of an academic study to publicly communicate a change in CRA interpretation was (and remains) highly unusual and was indicative of the agency’s concern over the potential tax revenue and equity consequences of the loophole highlighted in the study. The swift and direct response likely helped prevent the exploitation of this policy gap before it became widespread practice.
Healthy People, Healthy Taxes: Tax Policy and Healthcare Research
I’ve also noticed that some of your recent research and academic work is in a field that seems to be a bit different than taxation, namely, health care and health industry management. You’re the director of the School’s Master of Health Industry Administration (MHIA) program and a board member at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research – what led to this seeming change in your research focus?
In recent years, I have drifted into examining the role of tax policy in promoting healthcare as well as exploring the cost-benefit analysis of illness prevention programs. It is increasingly understood that health is wealth, and that a healthy workforce can be more productive and thereby pay higher income taxes.
For example, earlier diagnosis of cancer can lead to more efficacious and less expensive life-saving treatments that can preserve a patient’s ability to be a productive and taxpaying member of society. The higher tax revenues, in turn, may be able to afford the higher healthcare costs. Studies are increasingly showing that investments in healthcare and health research (such as that undertaken by the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research) offer a positive net present value to governments and society alike. I am currently working on research attempting to estimate the productivity benefits of detecting some cancers at an earlier stage.
How do you incorporate the overall business perspective from business school into healthcare?
I find that businesses or employers are also interested in maintaining a healthy workforce since employees are the principal drivers of profits.
For example, tracking and addressing employee absenteeism remains a major issue for most medium-to-large corporations. My own limited consulting work reflects such engagements. For example, employers are finding out that while Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs are increasing the costs of employee drug plans and wellness programs, employers are also enjoying the benefits of reduced employee absenteeism directly resulting from such drugs. Many employers are maintaining the higher coverage for these new drugs because they see the incremental benefits exceeding their incremental costs. I first raised this preventive healthcare for employees in my Globe and Mail op-ed at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is in the employers’ interests to assess, track and even disclose employee health as an asset, and to invest upstream in illness prevention measures since both employees and shareholders are aligned in ensuring future health of employees (as profit drivers). More narrowly, returns on employee training are lower if employees have high absenteeism due to illnesses.
What sort of financial implications are there for this?
More immediately in the short term, if our healthcare system could return an average-wage earning patient (or taxpayer) back to work two weeks (or 4% of the year) sooner, then such a patient / taxpayer would contribute $391 in additional taxes (= 4% of $9,780 annual income taxes paid by an average wage-earner in Ontario) compared to the baseline of remaining in poor health and economically unproductive. This additional tax revenue could pay for some of the taxpayer’s treatment.
There are some instances where we may see actual impacts on stock prices. A Japanese government ministry report shows that Japanese businesses that have been disclosing and reporting on their investments in employee health for a number of years (as part of their ‘S’ or “Social” calculus in their ESG disclosures) have been able to show a positive correlation with return on shareholder equity.
Our MHIA students are exposed to this line of thinking and will contribute to enlightened policies for their employers.
Any other noteworthy publications?
My most recent (co-authored) publication on a blueprint for future sustainable mass testing also makes the link between citizens’ health, workforce productivity, and government tax revenues. I believe that new research will continue to shed light on this critical link between health and productivity that is instrumental to policy makers and employers alike.
Thank you, Amin!
Amin Mawani is a Professor of Taxation, a Schulich Research Excellence Fellow, and the Director of Master of Health Industry Administration (MHIA) program at the Schulich School of Business.
