Wie gut ist Albertas „Steuervorteil“, wenn es eine defizitäre Kreditaufnahme erfordert?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/analysis-alberta-taxes-deficit-budget-2026-9.7118227
Wie gut ist Albertas „Steuervorteil“, wenn es eine defizitäre Kreditaufnahme erfordert?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/analysis-alberta-taxes-deficit-budget-2026-9.7118227
4 Kommentare
A solid reminder that Alberta’s fiscal woes exist entirely by choice.
> This chart’s aim then was the same as it is now: a calling card for businesses to relocate here from the rest of Canada, and for residents to bask in all their savings in the one province without a PST.
>
> But in deficit years like this one, the last one and the projected few to follow, Alberta is having to borrow billions of dollars to make this “advantage” proclamation.
>
> Some economists and finance veterans look at the same chart and see something else — the ability for Alberta to erase all its deficits through tax hikes and still remain comfortably the lowest-tax jurisdiction.
I was shocked to learn that just 40% of Alberta’s revenues come from taxes. I knew it was low, but not that low.
The biggest lie Albertans tell themselves is that they’re fiscally conservative. You only have to look at the provincial budgets to see that that isn’t true. They love to pat themselves on the back for having low taxes but it’s only because they rely so heavily on high oil prices to cover up the difference.
This article is aging like milk already.
Alberta’s deficit was large thanks to abnormally low O&G prices and significant increases in health and education spending.
Thanks to Trump’s war in Iran O&G prices have risen dramatically, and if it continues for any length of time (which seems increasingly likely), Alberta will probably post a surplus this year.
It made sense to a limited extent, but was ridiculously abused by multiple government’s to the point that it became unsustainable. Having no sales taxes & income taxes this low would have been workable if multiple government’s had continued to invest in the Heritage fund to the Lougheed-era levels post-Lougheed, or if we even just maintained the Klein era non-resource reserve fund that would had tens of billions in reserve funds available by the time the province was facing the brunt of the commodities crash between 2014-2015 if the Stelmach Redford government’s hadn’t pilfered it by the time of the floods etc.
Though at least for the last decade of Alberta politics, if we just implemented the next lowest province’s tax rate (Saskatchewan’s) we’d still have a tax advantage while hardly ever suffering deficits etc. Though to be honest, I don’t think its even a party based or ideological problem, rather an issue with simultaneous provincial government & electoral entitlement. Even when we have premiers that commit to reserve funds, the problem is that their successors almost immediately break with them on it. (this also happened in Saskatchewan etc.)