Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Flat Tax...A Lefty View.

It's not a big revelation that lefties don't like a flat tax. They prefer to tax the "wealthy" to death and demonize the bad corporations who actually manage to have a profit. That's why Ignatieff wants to increase corporate taxes to 18%. It's easy to make corporations the demons and the downtrodden "poor" the victims. Maybe a flat tax for all is the answer!

Look what I found when I googled "flat tax Alberta" A supposedly "non-partisan" organization that states that the flat tax is costing Albertans over 5 billion.

EDMONTON— A new fact sheet released this morning by the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute says that the “flat tax,” introduced by Ralph Klein in 2001, is costing the province in excess of $5 billion a year. Given the projected deficit of $4.3 billion this year, simply returning to the progressive tax structure that existed in 1999 would be more than enough to move the province from a deficit budget to a surplus budget.

The fact sheet, entitled Giving Away the Golden Egg, also highlights the amount of room the province has to reform its current tax system—Alberta could collect an extra $10 billion to $18 billion per year in taxes and still be competitive with other Canadian provinces.

Hey, fact sheet, those extra taxes will come out of my income, so big NO. Make Quebec pay us back all the money we have sent them. We don't want to be competitive with other provinces, we want to be in the lead! Lower taxes, more development and income for Albertans!

More about Parkland Institute, from their own mouths to our ears:

The Parkland Institute is an Alberta research network situated within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. It operates within the established and distinctive tradition of Canadian political economy and is non-partisan.
The Faculty of Arts? Wow that impresses me to no end, I loved all my Arts courses at the U of A, they were guaranteed 9's for my grade point average. So, how "non-partisan" are they? Here's a hint....

Parkland Institute includes those who are involved in interdisciplinary and socially-engaged thinking. In the broader Alberta community, Parkland Institute works with religious organizations, professionals, trade unionists, the arts community, non-profit organizations, environmentalists, feminists, social movement activists, private sector individuals and other interested individuals.
Non-partisan my butt! Unions, feminists, social "movement" activists, environmentalists? Seriously? How about their "hero"?

1.1 History
Parkland began in 1996, with three years of seed funding from the Faculty of Arts. Its inaugural book, Shredding the Public Interest, by Kevin Taft, was co-published with the University of Alberta Press. It was a publishing success, selling about 13,000 copies in Alberta in the six weeks leading up to the March 1997 provincial election. For context, the standard measure used by Canadian booksellers for a Canadian best seller is 5,000 books sold in one year. Dave King, former Education Minister in Peter Lougheed’s Conservative government acknowledged that the book had an enormous impact on the election. The Economist stated that "Mr. Taft may be right...Maybe the whole 'Klein Revolution' as it is called, was unnecessary."i
Since then, Parkland Institute has published 32 reports, five more books and over 50 op-ed articles. The reports were written by 25 different authors. The opinion pieces were written mostly by the Director, the Research Director and the Executive Director. The work consistently meets a high standard with all reports and papers peer-reviewed before publication.
Kevin Taft? Now why does that name ring a bell? Oh, right....

Kevin Taft (born September 9, 1955) is a liberal politician in Alberta, Canada. He was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and leader of the opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, from 2004 to 2008. Taft was raised in Edmonton, Alberta.

Ohhhh, and they have published 32 "PEER" reviewed reports. We all know how well those "PEER" reviewed global warming papers are doing now, don't we?

Personally, I think a flat tax works better than the progressive tax we have. The "poor" pay less and the "rich" can't hide their money from taxation. You won't hear that from the lefties, because they are the masters of hiding their income from us everyday taxpayers, ex-PM Paul Martin and his ships come to mind.

4 comments:

Southern Quebec said...

"The "poor" pay less and the "rich" can't hide their money from taxation"

Non-sequitur! Please explain...

"...ex-PM Paul Martin and his ships come to mind."

This is legal under Canadian tax law. What is illegal, is receiving envelopes with large amounts of cash, and forgetting to declare it!

liberal supporter said...

You're talking about a flat rate tax. How is that fair? Even if I pay the same rate as someone else, I still pay more dollars if I earn more. That's not fair. I'm not using more police, health care, highways or anything else, so why should I pay more?

A true flat tax means everybody pays the same amount. I only get one vote, regardless of my income. If I am to pay more tax than someone else, despite it being the same flat rate, then why should I not have more votes?

One person, one vote, one amount of tax.

You favour that, don't you? WIth a budget of $38 Billion, and a population of 3.7 million means your fair share of provincial tax would be $10,270. So for a family of four, your fair share of provincial tax would be $41,000.

You don't want to be leeching off others do you? You should pay your fair share, and a true flat tax is the most fair.

MONSTER said...

L/S there are more sources of Provincial revenue than personal taxes. Resourse revenue, sin taxes,gas taxes, ect, ect.As one who has been blessed to be in the top tax rate for many a year I believe that a fixed percentage tax (excempting those below a certain level of income)is fair.If you want one person one tax then line up and pay what I did last year (and many years before). I have a feeling that I have been subsidising you and those like you for many a year. Your welcome. MONSTER

hunter said...

Excellent Monster, some of us are tired of paying trough the nose for our productivity while others live off of the social programs.

I like your blog Monster, I can now click on your name and see your link to your blog. Keep blogging, it's worth it, even if you don't have any trolls yet! They will come!
Sometimes as a blogger, you think you are shouting into a great void, but people are listening. If nothing else, you get to relieve your tensions and voice your opinions.