Yep - I'm one of the ones affected. And my accountant said it could definitely hit me with that 70% rate.
I don't do income splitting, but I do have passive investments. Why? Because I don't get CPP, RRSP, paternity leave, etc. I'm fine with that - I'd rather take an overall lower tax rate to self-insure. It's my self-built pension plan. It's the cushion I need to get through the lean times. Despite 10 years in business, sometimes I still have to go months without paying myself so I can make sure my employees get paid. I'm not a wealthy 1%-er. I just finished my year end and I paid myself $70k last year.
My wife and I just had a baby, and so I rely on those savings to help fund a maternity / paternity leave.
If this change goes through, I know I will have to lay off at least two employees. That really, really, really sucks.
What's worse is the government said they only expect to generate another 250 million a year in revenue from this. That's a DROP in the bucket. That's settling with 25 Omar Khadr's. While the uber-rich and large corporations don't have anything to fear from this. And meantime Parliament just decided to vote themselves a raise last week. Must be nice.
While I don't mind paying a higher percentage in tax, this whole thing is so ill thought out it's pathetic. It's easy for the finance minister to pretend like he's falling on his sword here because he has a private corporation, when he's getting a fat pension and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salary via parliament.