Tuesday, April 14, 2009

NDP criticism of Alberta budget best

"Secret taxes", an NDP critic suggests.

Well said.  The royalty money ought to be described as a secret tax because it is not seen by the Alberta electorate as a tax.  Imagine if every penny of royalty income was saved, and all government services paid for by other sources of income.  This is the sort of trade-off between taxes and services most of the world´s citizens has to make.

It is not coincidence that Alberta has no consumption tax and collects such a large proportion of its revenue from royalties: the former is one of the most obvious taxes to the electorate, the latter one of the least.

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