“On the biggest issues, including affordable housing, cancelling decriminalization of deadly drugs, fixing our broken health-care system, making our streets safe, and putting our natural resources to work growing jobs and our economy, the Conservatives make sense as that new coalition,” said Sturko.
I am against all tax incentives because that is picking winners and losers. A single tax page system or zero income tax with zero payroll tax, that is the only 2 choices.
The whole point of a government is to pick winners and losers. That’s their entire job, passing legislation that allows, restricts, incentivizes, and disincentivizes certain activities to benefit citizens.
You sell vegetables, no PST applies. You sell cigarettes, PST + cigarette tax applies. You sell hand grenades, Nope, not allowed at all.
You aren’t allowed to pollute in X or Y manner to produce your product. You aren’t allowed to cut down trees in this area. You are allowed to ride a bike on the car roads, and you have the full rights of a vehicle if you do.
We’re rolling out a program to support X people. We’re rolling out a program to support X area.
What else do you think government does?
I also agree we should get rid of income taxes in order to benefit the economy, to be replaced primarily by land value taxes to eliminate 100% of all profit from simple (just holding it) real-estate ownership.
Single page tax is just a worse version of what we currently have. It has no upsides. it took me all of 20 minutes to fill out my taxes this year and I have both a T4 and self-employed income. The average citizen in BC has taxes that are even less complex than me. Would I like to see the government offer a free website to complete these easy returns? Sure, but that has nothing to do with simplifying the tax code.
I still say there can only be a single page flat tax system, or no income tax with no payroll tax.
“I want it simple” is not a good reason to choose a system that’s worse for everyone.
How does a flat single page tax apply to capital gains? Do you no longer get an exception for selling your primary residence? That’s a great way to hurt the ability for people to move even more than we’ve already done.
You no longer get benefits from RRSPs, TFSAs, or educational savings accounts for kids. We’re going to end up supporting a lot of broke old people in that case.
It’s nice that you want it to be simple, but sometimes less options isn’t better. It would be like saying you can only build your homes out of concrete to make it so that all houses are stronger against tornados and more mold resistant. Ignoring the fact that while they work well in some areas, cold climates and/or potential for earthquakes makes them a really bad choice in other regions.
I will only support a flat tax and reject all othes.
Well, good thing you don’t get to decide then.