Since Stephen Harper and the Conservatives took office in January 2006 taxpayers have no doubt noticed some changes on the taxes paid to Ottawa. Most noticeably, and welcomed, was the reduction in the GST from 7 percent to 6 percent, to now 5 percent. This tax reduction will put $10-billion back into the pockets of Canadians each year.

However, what taxpayers may not have noticed is the increased complexity of our tax code. Harper & Co. have introduced a myriad of tax credits, exemptions and paperwork for Canadian tax filers. Some of these "boutique tax cuts" (so-named for their small, specialized nature) include: a tax credit for putting your child into an approved sports program, a tax credit for taking public transit, a tax credit for students' textbooks, a tax deduction for security donations to charities, and an increased deduction for long-haul truckers' meals, to name a few.

This added complexity, while offering minimal real tax relief, has both increased the cost on government to administer and increased the burden placed upon taxpayers by requiring more paperwork to be filled out and another shoebox of receipts to be kept.

What's desperately needed in Ottawa is not more paperwork, but less. One way would be to reduce the number of credits and rates in exchange for lower tax rates.

Alberta was very successful in its move from a three-bracket, three-rate system to a single-rate of 10 percent in 2001. While the federal government controls how taxable income is determined, Alberta set its own single provincial rate.

Alberta combined simplification of the tax system with a significant reduction in taxes. Alberta's basic personal exemption went from $7,131 to $12,900, and the spousal exemption was raised from $6,055 to $12,900 as well. This move not only provided tax-relief for all taxpayers, but removed 200,000 low-income taxpayers from the tax roll completely.

The single-rate combined with matching personal and spousal exemptions also eliminated the desire by some to provincially "income-split." Allowing families to split their incomes evenly between two taxpayers has been offered by some as a way to address a suggested inequity of how our tax code treats family income. For example, a one-earner, two-adult family with $80,000 of income would pay more in taxes than a two-earner family with each one earning $40,000 under the old multi-bracketed system. Since 2001 in Alberta, two-adult families earning the same pay the same amount in taxes provincially, regardless of who is earning the income.

Some opponents of Alberta's single-rate tax have wrongfully labelled it "regressive." In tax terms, a regressive tax is one that as your income rises, the tax decreases as a percentage of your income. A good example of a regressive tax is the Alberta health care premium. It's $1,056 per family per year regardless of whether your family income is $40,000 or $100,000. As a percentage of your income, at $40,000 it is 3.2 percent of your after-tax income, whereas at $100,000 it is 1.5 percent.

Thanks to Alberta's healthy personal and spousal exemptions, as your income rises, so too does your average income tax rate. At $40,000, an individual's average tax rate is 6.1 percent, whereas at $100,000 it is 8.5 percent. Alberta's income tax is progressive, not regressive.

For these reasons and more, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has recently released a report calling for Alberta-style tax reforms in Ottawa. Under the CTF proposal Canada would go from having four-brackets to two, at 15 and 25 percent. Further, the plethora of boutique tax credits introduced by the Harper government, among others, would be scrapped in favour of lower rates and higher personal and spousal exemptions.

According to the CD Howe Institute, these reforms would ensure a $25-billion tax cut shared by taxpayers, and could be implemented in full by 2012 provided the Harper government does not grow spending by more than 2.5 percent per year.

As an added bonus, tax returns would be simplified, allowing the average taxpayer to be able to file their taxes with a hand-calculator.

In Alberta it's called the Alberta Advantage. Let's hope the Canada Advantage is next.