Alberta PST ?

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Rumor has it that the Premeir has been listening too some folks who are touting the creation of a provincial sales tax in Alberta as a way to stabilize government revenues and provide a large boost to government income. The tax if designed as is being proposed would bring billions into the hands of the government, who currently is billions short as projected in the last number of provincial budgets.

I am drawing a line in the sand .................if my government begins to talk about this as a solution to their spending problems I will make every possible attempt I can think of make a very loud noise about this. Tax and spend works really well for the government, but it screws the citizen into the dirt.

[Accountability Now]

I'm with you on this one Jerry. The Alberta goverment needs to stop basing its revenues on the high end and get back to proper budgeting. The talk of adding a PST would only be a short term solution to fix the blunder they made by overestimating oil revenues.

[Boges]

Notice you're not proposing to move because everywhere else in Canada worth living already has one.

[Canuckistani]

We don't need no education, we don't need no healthcare too. No police or firemen, what have they ever done for you? Hey, premier, leave the tax alone.

[CaptainChatham]

- Those of you who for some bizarre reason don't understand why Alberta is now looking at joining all the other provinces in imposing a sales tax will come to understand the situation if you can only answer the following quiz from a private blog I write on "trickle down government":

. During the decade from 2001 to 2010, what percentage of the increase in Alberta government revenues was spent not on the public but on public sector employees’ pay, perks and pensions?

a/ 25% since Alberta is supposed to be a fiscally responsible conservative province and the already well paid provincial public sector employees make up less than 15% of the work force.

b/ 40% since the bigger government gets the harder it is to control personnel numbers and costs and strong monopoly public sector union leaders tend to have their way with weak political leaders.

c/ 95%, changing “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” to “I’m from the government and I’m here to help myself” and explaining why Alberta is now considering the first sales tax in its history.

Edited March 6, 2013 by CaptainChatham

[Newfoundlander]

A PST is a great idea, if income taxes, and business taxes, are reduced to at least make it revenue neutral for people.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Newfoundlander

[Sleipnir]

A PST is a great idea, if income taxes, and business taxes, are reduced to at least make it revenue neutral for people.

Or just raise the royalties.

[Guest]

PST, bring it on.

Just don't blow the revenues.

[Newfoundlander]

Or just raise the royalties.

royalties don't bring in money from tourists, businesspeople visiting the province, or people who work in Alberta and live elsewhere.

[Sleipnir]

royalties don't bring in money from tourists, businesspeople visiting the province, or people who work in Alberta and live elsewhere.

I meant oil royalties.

[Newfoundlander]

I meant oil royalties.

I know what you meant.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Raiising royalties IS raising taxes. It seems that some folks bellieve wholeheartedly in the tax and spend concept of our Canadian governments at all levels. Taxation is the beast carried on the back of the citizens, it is a burden that must be undertaken in order to move forward. Even so, when the weight of the burden impedes the progress, logic dictates alternative methology. Of course logic and governmental activities equate to politics. The art of communication without purpose has grown to new heights.

I AM proposing to move, and leave Canada to retire. Not because of Alberta government action or runours of possible changes to the tax situation of provinces, but simply because of the income tax act altogether. This one hits home because it is upclose and personal, the government will withhold a significant percentage of my fixed pension income, which in my view leaves me little alternative. My projection is this, I will be charged more than $ 15,000.00 annually for the privilege of dealing with snowflakes. I think not.........but I digress.

While I do understand the need for the government to provide the services we have mandated it to deliver, the method of revenue stream generation lto fund and operate such a system eaves much to be desired in my view. The Canada Revenue Agency is charged with the acquistion of operating funds for the Government of Canada. They have all the power and authority to maintain a revenue stream and they do so in a wholehaeartedly dysfunctional and discriminatory manner. Notwithstanding any specific tax, of which there are many, the foundational mistake we designed into the system was in the application of income tax to revenue generated within Canada. It was a fundamental error to institute withholding taxes and discriminate against the citizen that received a paycheck for working for a living. No paycheck, no withholding tax, pay taxes due quarterly or annually. There is a large difference in how citizens are treated because of this. There are tax paying citizens that work for a living, and the there are citizens working that do not pay tax. Is there any other way to say that the system is neither fair nor functional? Simply raising taxes does nothing to address the real issue which is spending. The very idea that a government can count how much money it will spend a year into the future, and be wrong ALL THE TIME does not lead me to believe that budgets are worth the time, effort or even the expense of the paper they are written on. There is a real problem here, and it is in fact spending not funding, Yet the only question that seems to be allowed to be asked is how to fund that spending. Since we have to spend money on the programs and services we have mandated the government to deliver we are compelled to look at the funding model for operations, okay so be it. I do believe that should the public care to address this one single issue, they would discover a key to be used to resolve other issues.

The Progressive Conservative Government of Alberta has held power for decades. Here as well as in other regions throughout Canada, over the decades the tax systems put in place at all levels of government have evolved and shifted the tax burden from business income taxes which originally made up nearly eighty percent of government revenues, to the individual income taxes covering eighty percent of government income tax revenuses. During this shift in tax burden, there was a huge expansion of programs and services, The end result of course being an ever increasing bureaucratic administrative expense, we now know that we caused our own problems by spending our way into them. It seems a tad senseless to me that we would hold the citiizens we demand provide services for us hostage over the expense. In short it is not the public service fault that they work for the government, we hired them. Pay them or fire them and do whatever it was that they did yourself.

I would be okay with the idea of a PST if there was no GST, or income tax. In fact I support a tax on spending, call it a transaction tax and apply it to everything down the line with the exception of basic necessities much like the GST is structured. Everytime a transaction occurs the government can get paid, we can pay off all debts and do it quickly. We could balance a budget, we could move forward. Tax reforms could in fact change our world, they could make it better. Without reforms additional taxation will yield only addition problems.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Jerry J. Fortin

[shortlived]

I don't belong in this thread, but I have to remind you SOCIAL supports 0 taxes, no income tax nothing. People who need services will pay for them. Those who can't pay for them should be involved in government programs to create income.

There is no excuse for taxing people for services you can charge them directly for!

There is a time when taxes didn't exist in form of income or sales taxes.

Edited March 8, 2013 by shortlived

[Jerry J. Fortin]

I don't belong in this thread, but I have to remind you SOCIAL supports 0 taxes, no income tax nothing. People who need services will pay for them. Those who can't pay for them should be involved in government programs to create income.

There is no excuse for taxing people for services you can charge them directly for!

There is a time when taxes didn't exist in form of income or sales taxes.

There was a time before the implementation of taxation, we all lived in trees or caves at that point. From the day we moved out of the caves and trees we have been taxed. The big guy is going to take your grubs from you, its that simple. When humans organize, interact with each other, socialize....we create order. In doing so we apply rules. The big guy enforces the rules. The big guy charges you for the service. You get taxed.

Taxes are a reality. Society is a reality. Politics is a reality. We cannot deny reality, we must give it the respect it deserves. In one form or another those three things; taxes, society, politics are what we call life. We need them as we need water to drink, air to breath and food to eat.

The question at hand is whether or not a provincial sales is should be considered as a solution to budget deficit issue. My suggestion is that we evolve our system of taxation, not merely slap another bandaid on it. Government revenues determine program and service availability to citizens. In every nation on earth we measure a standard of living, and that is in the hands of the governments of those nations. Higher standards of living require higher kevels of funding which translates back into higher levies of taxation. This is a reality as well. This is the paradigm we are dealing with. Its always been this way,,,,,,,, but it does not have to stay this way.

Resolving the budget issues are a mere political exercise nothing more. The reality is simple governments can and do impose taxes, citizens can and do have a voice. We can speak out against things. Which is what we all do on these forums. It is our little apple box we use to rant! As my son so correctly suggests I like to rant about the government. The problem as I see it with government finances is related to debt and deficit. In Alberta we have already slain that dragon once, and there are damned few citizens that want to engage that beast again, the cost was horrific. At this point this province is one of the few jurisdictions in the world that can lay any claim to fiscal responsibility. Within that context our government has done well to avert or mitigate the effect of poor fiscal management. Yet for some reason on their own website they actually put up a budget calculator to resolve the deficit. I played with it and came out with a surplus after reducing the crude oil factor! The point is that it is a game for government to play and a cost for citizens to pay. When the government starts to talk about a sales tax, citizens should worry. The fact that they did not choose at this time to dive into a sales tax does not lead me to believe that they will forget about the idea..

[The_Squid]

I don't belong in this thread, but I have to remind you SOCIAL supports 0 taxes, no income tax nothing. People who need services will pay for them. Those who can't pay for them should be involved in government programs to create income.

There is no excuse for taxing people for services you can charge them directly for!

There is a time when taxes didn't exist in form of income or sales taxes.

So disabled people should be making licence plates for the state? Poor people shouldn't be allowed access to a doctor? Hospitals should turn people away who don't have enough credit?

The 14th century called... they want their backwards ideas back.

I'm going to assume that your post is merely trolling, because it had no rational thought put into it whatsoever.

[guyser]

So disabled people should be making licence plates for the state?

Well...duh , of course!

And when they are done, they should be the ones cutting the curbs to improve their own mobility.

[Argus]

There are two distinct issues.

1) Whether the programs are being run efficiently and effectively, which includes not spending too much on overhead, little wastage, and that public sector employees and contractors are being paid fairly. If that's the case that brings you to

2) Do the people of Alberta want all those programs? If not, then cut, if so, then you raise taxes. No other alternative exists.

Oh wait, lie about it and borrow money. Yes, that is a kind of alternative, but it has a short shelf life.

[eyeball]

There was a time before the implementation of taxation, we all lived in trees or caves at that point. From the day we moved out of the caves and trees we have been taxed. The big guy is going to take your grubs from you, its that simple. When humans organize, interact with each other, socialize....we create order. In doing so we apply rules. The big guy enforces the rules. The big guy charges you for the service. You get taxed.

Humans also organize to axe the big guy when he gets to big for his britches. That's also a reality in fact it might even be a chicken and egg thing. For all we know it was a big guy who inspired the first organization. I wouldn't be surprised to discover he's why we moved out into the world. There's no reason to think we followed him when it's just as likely he followed us.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

My point was that taxes are a means of providing the funding required to maintain the programs and services that are mandated through public means. There is a reason for them, we need them to pay for the stuff we want. The problem that is exists is the relatively unstable revenue model that has wide variations in its calculations, we are using a model with variable equations that fails to balance revenue with expenses. Revenues are not fixed numbers and expenses are not fixed numbers, they vary. Logic dictates that the books will never balance, and we have known this since the country began.