A clear income gradient exists for the sport and physical activity (PA) participation of Canadian children. Governments in Canada recently introduced tax credits to alleviate the financial burden associated with registering a child in organized physical activity (including sport). The majority of these credits, including the Children's Fitness Tax Credit, are non-refundable (i.e., reduces the amount of income tax a person pays). Such credits are useful only for individuals who incur a certain level of tax liability. Thus, low-income families who may pay little or no income tax will not benefit from the presence of non-refundable tax credits. In this commentary, we argue that the non-refundable tax credit is inherently inequitable for promoting PA. We suggest that a combination of refundable tax credits and subsidized programming for low-income children would be more equitable than the current approach of the Canadian government and several provinces that are expending approximately $200 million to support these credits.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.