VICTORIA: With an eye on next week's budget, the BC division of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today released information reminding the BC Finance minister not to raise any more taxes - and to point out how many taxes were raised in the 1990s.

"Since just 1997, real per capita revenues are up by $528 annually," said CTF-BC director Mark Milke, who noted there is a long list of taxes that were raised in the 1990s.

List of taxes raised or introduced in the 1990s:

Basic personal tax rate - up

Personal surtax rate - raised

Extra surtax on income - added

Sales tax -expanded

Sales tax - raised

BC Liquor store mark-ups - raised

Fuel taxes - raised

Education property taxes -raised

User fees -raised

Business taxes -raised

Resource taxes -raised

Probate taxes -raised

"Those taxes pulled in billions of extra dollars from taxpayers and into government coffers over the last decade - most of which are still where the NDP left them. And last week saw taxpayers dinged for another $400 million every year through increased health care taxes."

" In addition, the B.C. treasury alone reaped an extra $3.6 billion between 1989 and 1999 because of 'bracket creep' taxes, where inflation pushed people into higher tax brackets," said Milke.

The Federation repeated its call for a full review of government salaries to gauge how much higher they are when compared with the non-profit and private sector, with an eye to bringing those salaries into line with those other two sectors over time.

"Taxpayers are doing - and have done - their part to help the government balance the books by 2004," said Milke. "Over time, wage costs must be brought into line with what taxpayers can afford."