Last week a government insider confirmed to CFTO news in Toronto that the a made in Ontario tax system will be one of the key commitments of the government when the Throne Speech is delivered this fall. This commitment was outlined in the Tories' recent provincial election platform entitled Blueprint.

But what does this mean for Ontario's 5.8 million taxpayers Referring back to the Blueprint document isn't much help. It only states that the government will "establish a made for Ontario tax system completely independent of the federal government's."

Currently, Quebec is the only province that has decoupled its system from the federal tax bureaucracy. Quebeckers fill out two separate sets of forms, one for Revenue Canada, one for Revenue Quebec. And these forms go to two separate locations. All other provinces have inserts but only one set of forms and Ottawa collects all the money and data and simply remits what you owe to the folks at Queen's Park once they have crunched your numbers.

Quebeckers have a separate provincial tax rate on their taxable income while the rest of us simply pay a percentage - 39.5% due to the July 1st provincial tax cut - based on what we owe the feds in taxes.

If a 'made for Ontario' solution means emulating the Quebec model, then it's a non-starter as far as we're concerned. We don't need to establish another tax collection bureaucracy when Revenue Canada already performs this task. Growth in non-priority government program areas is bad enough, spending millions for provincial tax collectors would be abhorrent.

But if Ontario decides to emulate Alberta (in 2002) and Manitoba's desire to simply set a provincial tax rate based on taxable income and let Ottawa continue to collect and remit the monies to Toronto, it would be a positive step forward.

During the late 80's and early 90s, the feds hiked taxes in almost every budget. This had a double whammy effect because our Ontario taxes automatically increased due to the calculation of provincial taxes as a percentage of what you owe the feds. Any province that tried to cut taxes watched these cuts erode or be wiped out entirely by federal tax hikes.

Now with the feds musing about really cutting income tax, the opposite is true. Provincial revenues could decrease due to federal tax cuts that could jeopardize Ontario's ability to deliver programs. This is the real "political" reason why decoupling from the federal system is now in vogue. But in the case, good politics make good policy.

Greater certainty of anticipated tax revenues allows Ontario to better budget, plan and deliver funding for key services such as health care and education. A stand-alone tax rate also allows Ontarians and potential investors to easily compare tax rates across Canada and the U.S.

Finally, if Ontario follows Alberta's lead and sets a single rate with generous personal exemptions and indexes its tax system to inflation (something that Ottawa won't do), a made for Ontario tax regime will be as simpler, fairer, lower and better.