Wirtschaftliche Argumente für eine Umsatzsteuer der Provinz in Alberta
https://open.substack.com/pub/wallsandbridges/p/economic-arguments-for-a-provincial?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1j3aab
Wirtschaftliche Argumente für eine Umsatzsteuer der Provinz in Alberta
https://open.substack.com/pub/wallsandbridges/p/economic-arguments-for-a-provincial?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1j3aab
4 Kommentare
Number 1, right off the hop…
>The sales tax should be a rather low amount (2-3%)
…puts this written work firmly in the „Fantasy“ category.
The author should consider writing about elves and wizards instead.
I haven’t seen one of these in a while, the Alberta government must be running a deficit this year.
A sales tax is political poison in Alberta, now more than ever. Smith promised an income tax cut during the last election and then tried to delay it until just before the next provincial election. The grassroots of the UCP came after her and she immediately implemented it.
There will be no sales tax now or in the foreseeable future.
The fact that these types of things are so beyond the capabilities of politicians to explain to people is such a stain on democracy. Gotten to the point where something that has been taken as fact forever that can be explained in 30 seconds is just completely off the table. And even if they do understand it, no one trusts the government to enact it properly.
Any counter argument against a PST can be immediately waved away with examples that already exist. Make basic items exempt. You can make it revenue neutral for like 60% of people in a dozen different ways. No one wants to tax poor people more. That’s not an goal worth pursuing.
The whole conversation is how do you tax the 40% enough to cover the budget in a way that least harms the economy. That answer is and always will be sales taxes and property taxes. Scrap corporate taxes, income taxes should be able to be fully explained in a 3 page document. Not the monstrosity that is our IT. As the article says, even if you could make the PST 100% revenue neutral for each Alberta citizen. Not sure that’s possible but whatever, it would still be a good idea.
Smith pulled off the income tax for property tax increase pretty smoothly. BC did the carbon tax for income tax swap. The right person with a clear plan can sell these things.
It weird too because a 2% PST would be tiny and would yield quite a bit of revenue for the province.