Last month's Annual Report for the 2002-03 fiscal year revealed that the Alberta government collected $2.8 billion in extra tax revenues which it had not counted on.

That works out to $875 for every man, woman and child in Alberta!

Most of this $2.8 billion windfall comes from the sale of oil and natural gas, which belongs to the people of Alberta. The remainder of this $2.8 billion is higher-than-expected revenue from personal income tax, corporate income tax, school property tax, insurance taxes, fuel tax, and the hotel room tax, plus a record $914 million in health care premium taxes.

How much of the $2.8 billion in unanticipated tax revenues went back to the taxpayers who earned it and own it What portion of this $875-per-person in over-taxation was returned to Albertans

Three quarters One half One quarter One tenth, perhaps

One quarter of this extra $2.8 billion is enough to reverse the $641 million in tax increases imposed on Albertans last year. In April of 2002 the health care premium tax (which flows into General Revenues and doesn't pay for health care any more than the hotel room tax) was raised to $528 per person, or $1,056 for families.

Two thirds of this $2.8 billion would enable the government to eliminate both the health care premium tax and the provincial school property tax. Or, if all of this $2.8 billion was put towards a cut to personal income taxes, Alberta could reduce its rate from 10% down to 4%.

The old Premier Klein would have found a way to give most - or at least some - of this money back to Albertans.

Not so the new Premier Klein.

Not one penny of this $2.8 billion will go towards a tax cut.

After ten years in office, Premier Klein and his loyalists think the money is theirs, to be spent according to their discretion. And they think they can spend it with greater wisdom than the "severely normal" Albertans they once proudly claimed to represent. That's why Alberta's spending on government programs grew 58% from 1996 to 2002, while Alberta's population grew only 12% during the same time period.

If Martha and Henry could keep an extra $88 per month by not paying the health care premium tax, they might waste it on holidays and renovations to their house, and saving for the education of their children or grandchildren. If a single mother had to pay less income tax, she might waste that money on nicer clothes and more books for her children. If Bill and Betty no longer had to pay provincial property tax, they might waste this money by giving more of it to charity, or by paying off their mortgage earlier.

If Premier Klein let Albertans keep even a fraction of the $2.8 billion, we taxpayers would have more money to contribute to the charities and causes of our choice, not to mention improving our own lives and economic futures.

The government's Annual Report proves there was no excuse for the $641 million tax increase in 2002. And there is no excuse for not abolishing Alberta's deceitful and regressive health care premium tax.