Lower tax to lure firms to Canada-Flaherty

OTTAWA, July 3 (Reuters) - Other companies are likely to follow Tim Hortons Inc (THI.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) in moving their corporate structures to Canada to take advantage of a falling corporate tax rate, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Friday.

The coffee shop chain said last month it applied with U.S. regulators to return to its Canadian corporate roots through a reorganization.

Flaherty told reporters on a conference call from Santiago, Chile, that he hoped Canada's combined federal and provincial corporate tax rate would fall to 25 percent.

"I'm optimistic that we're going to get to that 25 percent (corporate) tax rate, federal and provincial, by 2013 or so," he said. (Reporting by Louise Egan and Randall Palmer; Writing by Jeffrey Hodgson; editing by Rob Wilson)