Summary
THE Canadian Taxpayers Federation suspects that the Harper government did not strip its "surplus" cupboard bare in the tax-cutting fiscal update Tuesday; that it is under-reporting surplus revenues so as to have cash to buy an election should the Liberals find the courage to force one. Given that federal governments have underestimated surpluses for the past 10 years, the federation has reason to be suspicious. But electoral suspicions aside, every Canadian should welcome the fact that over the next five years, Ottawa will collect $60 billion less than it would have without the tax measures unveiled by Jim Flaherty, the minister of Finance. It means that Canadians who will earn that money will keep it.
How it stays in pockets will be achieved "across the board" as the Harper government promised. Increased personal exemptions and a lowered personal tax rate retroactive to the start of the year are welcome and, for the government, blunt the Liberal charge that it had increased the rate to make the first cut in the GST last year. A second promised cut, bringing the GST down to five per cent from seven per cent is, arguably, not the best way to cut $5 billion a year of taxes if economic investment is the goal because it encourages consumer spending. But it is a tax rate cut nonetheless, which, with other measures, will save Canadians between $500 and $2,000 a year. Some pundits have dismissed these savings as insignificant. But such "cheap" shots are evidence not of significance, it would seem, but rather that some pundits are either inordinately altruistic or well-heeled.See the full content of this document
Extract
Editorial - You Earned It, Keep It
THE Canadian Taxpayers Federation suspects that the Harper government did not strip its "surplus" cupboard bare in the tax-cutting fiscal update Tuesday; that it is under-reporting surplus revenues so as to have cash to buy an election should the Liberals find the courage to for...
See the full content of this document
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