ICBC costing millions – Carbon Tax hike

Big government daycare emerging

VICTORIA, BC: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) reacted today to the release of the BC government’s 2018 budget. In the new budget, the BC government is shifting a big health tax burden on to employers, while planting the seeds for an expensive government daycare system.

While eliminating the Medical Services Premium (MSP) for individuals, the BC government has created a new Employer Health Tax for businesses with payrolls over $500,000. This will rake in $463 million for government coffers in 2018-19, with the haul jumping to $1.9 billion in 2020-21. Many small businesses like restaurants can easily exceed half a million in payroll, so this new tax hits a wide range of job creators.

“This is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and we worry that employees will suffer for it,” said Kris Sims, BC Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “It was good that the government committed to axing the unfair MSP health tax, but they are now pinning it on employers who will have to find that money somewhere. Employers don’t have a magical pot of money to hand to government and they will do things like freezing wages, halting hiring and ceasing expansion. That punishes growth and innovation.”

The BC carbon tax is going up to $35 per ton on April 1st this year, and it will no longer be labelled “revenue neutral” which means the government doesn’t need detail where they are spending it.

The BC government has delivered a balanced budget – but just barely. The ICBC financial “dumpster fire” continues to plague the provincial government, dragging down the budget surplus to a razor thin $219 million.

“If the BC government could take the ICBC anchor off its neck, this budget would be much more buoyant,” Sims added. “It would be a relief to change ICBC into a co-op, putting it into the hands of drivers who choose it and opening it up to competition.”

The government is also funneling taxpayer dollars into childcare, with the money going to licensed daycare providers and university training for daycare workers, rather than directly to parents.

“Whenever government gets involved, it gets complicated and expensive, it’s better to give the money directly back to parents and families so they can use the money where they need it – if that’s at an official daycare provider or at grandma’s house, that choice should be up to them,” Sims added.

Other tax changes include:

• BC carbon tax increasing to $35 per ton, costing an average household more than $350 in gasoline carbon taxes per year.
• Hiking the gas tax in Victoria by 2 cents per litre, to 5.5 cents per litre, collecting $7 million taxpayer dollars for the government.
• Cancelling the BC Education Tax credit.
• Creating a new BC caregiver credit up to $230.53 per year.
• Jacking up taxes on smokers to 27.5 cents per cigarette, $5.50 in BC tax for a pack of 20 cigarettes.

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For more information call:

Kris Sims, BC Director                 

Cell: 604-997-1798

Email: [email protected]       

Twitter: @kris_sims