The Chamber of Commerce held a lunch on Wednesday where local business owners attended to learn about the proposed tax changes on private corporations.

The lunch featured Jordan Kennedy of MNP do a presentation on the proposed changes, he put them in simpler terms.

"The three things they are trying to do are stop people from moving income to family members to use their low tax rates, they don't want people to invest their after tax money because an employee wouldn't have that same advantage, and third, they really don't like people turning income that would be a dividend, into a capital gain. Those are the three things they have said, it's unfair for business owners to have this opportunity so they are trying to take away that perceived unfairness."

The proposed changes are coming from the Federal Government. Kennedy explains some of the concerns this could bring on small business owners.

"Usually their company is their retirement. They might not have a pension plan or RRSPs. So this is where their retirement income would come from. If that gets taxed at a much higher rate they'll have less to retire on. Re-investment in business isn't done as clearly as the government thinks it is. It doesn't always happen the same amount every year, sometimes you have to build up some money."

He goes on to explain that it's important for small business owners to keep track of what's going on with the proposed changes.

"This is going to effect almost every small business owner and small corporation. Really keep an eye on these things as they develop, there are some planning people should be doing right now but really think about how this is going to affect them in the future and just ask for help if they think it could apply because it probably will."

The first change regarding income sprinkling would come into effect starting January 1, 2018.