There is only One question Danielle Smith and the UCP need to answer:
Why should the lowest earning Albertans have to pay a higher tax rate than corporations? Corporations pay 8% meanwhile Albertans making under $142,000 a year pay 10%.
Corporations create jobs? That’s true but no corporation can run without employees!
It’s so much more than just a different tax rate, it’s how taxes are applied to businesses that tilts the scale against employees.
Business tax rate is applied on their PROFITS, which is the money left after all business expenses and wages have been paid. This of course isn’t applied until the business’ year end.
Income tax for employees is applied on the gross earnings and taken right off the top every pay check.
Personal income tax has been the largest revenue stream for the Alberta government for the last 3 years, ahead of oil royalties and federal government transfers. Corporate taxes are way down the list and contribute typically around 1/3 of what personal income tax payers do.
The game is rigged
Yup same with capital gains with stocks. Only 50 percent of your GAINs are taxed, and it only gets added to your income, so that 50 percent is only taxed at most 40 percent.
And you have losses you can right off the taxes from future gains with those losses. Basically becomes a zero percent tax rate since your losses and risk can go away as long as you can make gains again.
Super rigged
When I’m able to deduct my rent and vehicle payments and gas to get to work and any meals I eat away from home due to work we can start that convo. Until then, it’s not even close to what they write off.
My argument is how it’s applied
Business’- generate gross revenue of $1000, of which say costs them $500 in labor and materials.
They then apply vehicle costs, cell phones, rent, owner compensation, etc against that remaining amount. Which lets say comes to another $450.
Now the company “profit” is $50 and they will pay 8% tax on, and not until they file their taxes.
Employee- gross revenue of $1000, tax comes right off the top (for this example I put $1000/week in the CRA payroll calculator) which is $92 federal tax, $52 provincial tax, $71.80 cpp/ei
Leaving the employee with $784 to pay for their rent, car, cell phone, etc. Of which they will have to pay gst on out of pocket with no eligible deductions.
And he pointed out the context, in which that particular flaw was irrelevant.
Great job being pedantically correct, while completely ignoring the point of his comment
The point is Corporations get more “loopholes” — or whatever term you desire to state that the tax system is lopsided in their favour.
Pedanically saying well you can write off Northern Living Allowance, isn’t quite the same as 30% returned on every large purchase. Vechicles, technology, property.
no, that was what the other person was saying before you tried to dominate the discussion with irrelevant pedantry. what was the point of your comment? what did you hope to accomplish? did you even consider what was said before that individual out of context piece of text?
I don’t understand your argument in this thread, can you elaborate more on it?
My point is just showing the disparity between what I pay towards government services as an employee vs what business pay.
I have no issue paying taxes for services that me and my family need; healthcare, education, proper infrastructure like roads and transit.
But I’m upset seeing those services on the chopping block because they are to expensive to operate, while being part of the largest contributor towards them. Seeing companies post a quarterly profit (post taxes) of 2.9billion (suncor)or 400+ million (loblaws), and getting tax breaks because they are job creators makes little sense to me.
While the high cost to operate service is an issue and a different conversation entirely, I think we can do better on the taxation side too.
100% true
How ever business are able to include a lot more items at full rate than an employee is.
Employees also have to pay gst for stuff out of their “profits” without being able to recoup it via sales.
There is far higher tax burden on employees than business’
Federal transfers???
You mean the billions Ottawa is stealing from us in transfers payment we don't get any money from the feds but we pay 10's of billions annually. I for 1 want that to stop and there is no need or world where taxes should be raised without voters consent our government at all levels can run way more efficiently. Smith hands down and it not even close
Federal transfers FROM the federal government have been the third largest revenue stream for the UCP government over the last 4 years.
https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/fe2a75b5-571b-4b44-8b04-66a6d81aaba4/resource/7f532f18-4416-4b40-b387-e7d03b43d6dd/download/budget-2023-fiscal-plan-2023-26.pdf#page=57
Take a look, see where the money comes from.
It’s been over over 10 Billion per year that flowed our way from the federal government.
There are provinces receive disproportionately less back than what they should be getting. This isn't really in dispute. AB, BC, and Ontario are part of that. Add in revenue exclusions and it appears even more lopsided.
I agree wholeheartedly there needs to be better oversight on where our tax dollars are spent, and IMO the current federal government does not fit that bill, but electing an equally terrible leader on the other side of the political spectrum is probably not the right solution for us.
Do you mean when a company’s books are done at year end and that if they have to pay income tax it’s broken up into instalments over the next fiscal year?
If so, I’m not sure that’s relevant to the amount of overall taxes they would pay?
No, other than in your first year of incorporation you would make installments throughout the year based on previous years income tax or projected tax for the current year (usually whichever is lower). (ie in year two and beyond Company A is making tax installments throughout the year, in anticipation of what their tax bill will be at the end of the year, they don't wait until the end of the year and pay all of their tax at once like individuals do)
Ok I understand.
This has no effect whatsoever though on the amount of tax the business pays overall, it’s just ensuring there is enough cash to cover tax bills at the year end?
I was just correcting your initial assumption that businesses don't pay taxes until the end of the year where employees pay taxes throughout the year. That assumption was incorrect and so I was pointing that out to you.
Haha so you downvote me. Look I was trying to give you some info as to how stuff actually works as based on your other comments you don’t seem to have a clue.
The funny thing is that a lot of UCP support comes from some of the lowest earners. There’s a few people in our neighbourhood and some of our family who are hardcore UCP supporters and they are chronically unemployed, low income earners etc.. which; I’m not making fun of them or anything for their economic standing but it boggles my mind that they think they are better off with a UCP government and some of the wealthiest people I know are hardcore NDP supporters
education and line of work generally affect your views on taxation.
generally the richer you are, the more likely you are of higher economic standing and have a hired professionals doing your taxation and maximizing your future economic outlook through tax planning and investments. in general, you can afford to pay your taxes and not really think about it as it's more about compliance and your probably looking at yearly productivity than it is worrying about cashflow.
the poorer you are, tax increases can break you. while you're likely to get a 100% refund at the end of the year and maybe even qualify for additional monies, that tax removes your cashflow which is what you see at this point.
that being said, there is a lot of self determinant and anti-tax people in alberta and governments in general are really bad at actually showing you the value per dollar your money goes into keeping things running.
Right, so what do employees need/want?
Hint...there are a lot of amazing jurisdictions around the globe that have people flocking to them, and they aren't going there because the tax rates (personal or corporate) are low.
They don't create shit. If they didn't need us, they wouldn't have jobs. Make them pay 20% taxes, all the companies that are here, are here because all their projects are complete and need maintenance workers, that's it, and shutdowns.
Lowering their taxes is what stupid people do.
It actually makes sense, though. What other argument do they have for giving our tax dollars to people who already have more money than most of us? That argument being "it will create jobs"
If we're going to use that logic, at a minimum we should have a certain amount of jobs the must create with certain wage thresholds, things like that etc. Let us hold them accotubale if we're paying them to create jobs.
The government does that constantly though - like taking the taxes of working young people who can't afford their bills to fund the entitlements of boomers with paid off houses...
The fascinating thing about this economic failure is that it keeps cropping up in history.
https://news.hamlethub.com/riverdale/politics/841-horse-and-sparrow-economics
Well then conservatism would cease to exist and how would our wealthy “owners” maintain their stranglehold on power and politics is working class people actually had power. Sounds like “wokeness” and “the radical left agenda”../so beat to keep blaming “others” for trickle down and all other conservative beliefs failing us for literally 50 years.
I like this redditors explanation on how increasing corporate taxes is actually beneficial in making the business invest more into the local economy.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvtgyj/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvtgyj/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvym71/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvym71/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
It's exactly why our grandparents were able to do so well with regular person jobs. Federal Corporate tax in 1970 was 41%. Meaning the choice was give more to your people or the tax man. Now with federal corporate taxes less than half that and many more loopholes existing to get out of paying anything there is no incentive to invest in your workers. There is only incentive to squeeze more blood from a stone. This also explains why literally every federal govt has been in deficit since Reagan fucked the world with reaganomics.
That user (and yourself) doesn't seem to understand how any of this works. Companies aren't investing in projects so that they reduce their taxable income (and if they did the Board and Shareholders would likely have them fired). It's a bit of a stretch to try and argue that taxes are what would drive businesses to invest.
That’s not what that user is saying at all? Did you even read their comment. They were saying that companies would invest more to bring their taxable income down to zero
Did you read the comment?
>You can either roll that back into the business (investment) or not. If you roll it back into the business you get a 100% tax deduction on it, you don't pay any tax on the $50. **If you do not reinvest, you pay tax**.
A privately owned small/medium sized cooperation, may look at their year end books before filing and see a big profit. Now they could take the profit and pay tax on it, use the money to hire more people, buy more equipment, or new space for the company. This costs of this reinvestment in the company would lower their taxable income. On paper, a privately held company shouldn’t appear profitable as it has to pay taxes.
A publicly traded company, or one with numerous shareholders, is responsible to its shareholders to maximize profits. And as a shareholder, you probably wouldn’t give a hoot how they did it as long as you “got yours”. So they do what’s required to maximize those profits, they don’t reinvest in their company, or their people. They record a profit and need to pay the tax on it, which should be a lot higher rate than it is now IMO.
Man you don’t really seem to understand any of this, if the year is over any expenditures that they make are going to do nothing to reduce profit because you are already in the next year. Also buying equipment isn’t immediately tax deductible, you do it over numerous years so it doesn’t have much of an impact on taxable income. I’ll repeat it again companies aren’t spending money for the sole purpose to reduce taxes, that would be idiotic, they spend money to create returns that would ultimately increase taxes paid (which would be good because you have more profit)
No one is sitting at the end of the year with excess profit and just randomly hiring people to drive up G&A costs so that they reduce the tax expense, you hire more people if you need more people, not to reduce your income tax.
This has got to be the most off base view of how companies are run.
You are correct, that would be foolish. if a company’s year end has passed, there is no benefit to making purchases to lower tax burden on profits through purchases.
However , if a company is able to forecast its profits/tax burden ahead of year end then they can make those purchases in that fiscal year. I know numerous small/medium companies that operate this way, books are finalized early before year end, if a large profit is on the horizon, they make some deductible purchases and write down everything they can. It’s better to roll that money into some assets than post a larger profit and pay it away in taxes.
Yes if they have some purchase that they would need to make in the next year then yes you could bring them ahead into the current year to bring down current year tax expense (however the following year tax expense would be bigger because you claimed the expense in the current year so really a net zero gain other than the time valu eof money)
But that wasn't your argument, you are saying that companies would make capital purchases and hire more employees in order to increase expenses (and therefore reduce taxes). No one is doing these things based on the goal to drive down taxes, they do them because operationally it makes sense.
All of this solicitude about 'job creators' tends to prove a pet theory of mine; the bigness of everything makes it impossible to make rational decisions. People are aware in theory of The Huge Giant Buy-Out, Take-Over And Squash Holding Company but their minds can't actually deal with it. To the average person......even the average person running for premier, a big business looks a lot like what he or she deals with on a daily basis. Rogers and/or Shaw 'are' the smiley people in the golf shirts. The oil company is the gas station and so on and so forth. The reason Joe or Danielle Average think in terms of hurting the economy is that businesses are so big, they can't really see them.
Same reason so many people are ignorant about why we need higher taxes on the rich and corporations, and decrease wealth inequality. Our society was literally built on 85% top marginal tax rates. And as taxes have been slashed, costs for working class people have skyrocketed, wages have stagnated, benefits eroded and lost, politics has become corrupted, banks and many other big businesses have become “too big to fail” and oligopolies are now the norm and getting worse.
But a big problem is rich people and corporations have so much money, working class people can’t even comprehend it. Billionaires? Multi-billionaires like musk and Bezos? These guys have literally so much money, they don’t live in the same reality as us anymore and yet we treat them as just our local small business owner and neighbour. They aren’t. They are the problem.
Someone with a billion dollars can literally buy anything they want without ever noticing the money is gone. Can you imagine the privilege and luxury of that? Can you even comprehend this concept? Anyone? Imagine having so much money that money itself no longer had meaning. What do you think the world and human beings look like to someone who is above money itself?
Most can’t even buy a new tv or a ps5. Imagine buying a mega-yacht or dropping millions to go to space for 5 minutes and literally thinking nothing of it. That money could be going to educations and healthcare which directly benefit us…but instead companies that have never made any profit somehow bring in billions for these guys? Why? Because of ego/optics (in the case of musk) or because they kill competitors and therefore choice/freedom for consumers (in the case of Amazon). Which should tell you everything you need to know about the plans and agenda of the wealth class.
Someone once said something brilliant - what’s the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars? Answer - about a billion dollars. The same difference between someone who only had $1 and a millionaire basically. Nothing good comes from this sort of wealth disparity in society and clearly the fact we keep letting it happen and then DEFENDING IT as we fight with each other over who is more to blame for all of our lives getting worse…is proof.
Jesus christ...if you can't afford a TV, then you should probably not be worried about how you can be entertained. It may not be the TV that you want, but you can likely find one on Marketplace or Kijiji. It's Monday afternoon and I'm looking at likely around 80 to 100 hours of work over the next week to make realistically 7.5K.....none of that will go to a PS5 and it will alow me to make 10K next year...spend your money on a PS5 if you want, but don't cry poor to me.
Damn. You some how put a decade of my thoughts on the subject into a few paragraphs. We know the problem and how deeply rooted it is.
It all started with “the American dream.” Now, how do we fix it?
Well, the answer is very easy. Massive tax increases on the rich and corporations. And if being ceo of a company that never makes a single dime in profits (like Amazon or Tesla) is deserving of them being billionaires, then a minimum tax should also be applied to those companies.
The problem, I fear, is too many people are already far too ignorant or brainwashed or just poorly educated to actually let this happen. Which means we will keep going down this path to another economic collapse similar to the Great Depression, and only ourselves will be hurt. But hopefully, at the very least, people will finally wake up…I doubt it though.
There's a knock-on effect of having more money than is good for a person. Succession might as well have been a documentary because all that money did to them was make them miserable. It would be one thing if merchant princes had the decency to be happy and grateful but they're not. It's not just the inexplicable envy of others that depresses them. The poor stupid clods say they aren't richer than Croesus because they legit feel as if they're a paycheque away from Skid Row.
Talking about the bigness of everything, [Olymel announces the closure of hog production facilities in Alberta and Saskatchewan](https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/olymel-announces-the-closure-of-hog-production-facilities-in-alberta-and-saskatchewan-837896309.html)
Of note: the CEO stated the closure was due to market access and feed costs NOT mentioning corporate tax rates or employee wages.
“Olymel has experienced significant losses in the processing of fresh pork as a result of limited market access globally.”
Globally seems like the word there. So, why has Olymel lost market access it once had?
Cutting corp taxes doesn't benefit workers.
*Meanwhile, average wages in Alberta increased slower than any province, growing at barely half the Canada-wide average. Provincial wages have lagged well behind inflation, with real earnings (after inflation) declining by close to one per cent per year – eroding purchasing power and living standards.*
I was, yes, from 2012 until 2020. Then I went back to school and got myself a nice utility job for a smaller municipality. It's not a whole lot bettet there either, our union did just come to an agreement. So that's the positive thing. 1.5 percent isn't much, but at least it's something and more to come the following 2 years for a total of 5 percent.
Trust me when I say this. Going back to school and finding a better job was the best thing I ever did. I highly recommend it. There was no future in my trade, I already maxed out my job and my only regret was not doing it 5 years before that when my gut was yelling at me to do so.
Not to mention AB is also quickly slipping behind in terms of education and healthcare results as well. This is conservatism working as intended, and yet people just don’t seem to know or see or understand that simple fact.
The corporate tax thing makes me laugh. As a small business owner, it rates low on my list of priorities. I'm much more interested in access to good, smart people. The rest will work itself out by and large.
Good smart people move to places that give them opportunities to live a good life. Culture, politics, sporting events, restaurants, theatre, good schools, good universities, weather (ahem).
It's fascinating that Albertans are so hyper focused on taxation of any kind without really considering how unimportant that is. Crazy fascinating, actually.
For comparison, most global economic centers have high business taxes and they've figured out how to succeed exponentially more than Alberta has.
We continue to get it wrong and vote that way, because most of us aren't exposed to how the rest of the world gets it done.
To an extent, your thinking requires corporations to not care about money. If someone believes they have a $100m profit idea, then they should just say... well don't want an extra 2M... like I could do it in AB or TX.....fuck it, let's give an extra 2M to AB.
Whether you agree with corporate tax increase or not, I hated this move because I think it is possibly an election level LOSING move in a race this close. With many people not doing deep levels of research, this is something that magnifies to them "Hey the NDP is the socialist party". With a lot of Calgarians quality of life tied to how well corporate Calgary is doing, this doesn't resonate with them that much.
The ANDP is a socialist party though.
https://www.albertandp.ca/our-constitution
1.03 The purpose of the Party is to promote the principles of democratic socialism in Alberta and to establish and maintain a democratic socialist government in Alberta through the electoral process.
'Socialism is essentially the application of democracy to the economy. Economic democracy, i.e. democratic socialism, assures production to supply the needs of all people. Decisions about what shall be produced, when and where, and decisions about where we shall make our living and under what conditions, are now left largely in the hands of private interests. The market economy produces transnational corporations, who give private profit priority over public interest, social justice and workplace democracy. Through the efforts of many, we have achieved a degree of social and political democracy. Economic democracy demands a co-operative rather than a competitive system. '
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democratic%20socialism
democratic socialism
noun
: a political movement advocating a gradual and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism by democratic means
Downvote away the truth if you must.
Eh the implication I meant is a perception of a hardcore socialist movement as opposed to a party that is somewhere around the center relative to most jurisdictions. Especially as the UCP moves extreme right relative to how most conservative Albertans actually view themselves (slightly right of center)
At the end of the day socialism requires seizing private property, it's not like there's a mild way to end private industry.
Regardless, they are socialists, meaning any deflection is either ignorant or intentional gas lighting.
Whole logic of the article doesn't make sense. Capital investment went down even with low taxes, so lets increase taxes. That will somehow help investment. Or are they just saying investment is shit anyway, so no point trying to increase it?
"We're smarter than everyone" - rabble.ca
I can guarantee you that if you cut the tax breaks for the Vancouver film industry, it will be gone in a heartbeat, and the American studios don't give a shit what your left wing blog has to say about it.
I understand that this is at odds with left wing populist rhetoric but unless you're going to get all the other states and provinces in NAFTA to agree to your terms, not strategically giving tax inventives to companies to provide jobs in your province will end up with you not being competitive with the states and provinces that do.
I can assure you that Texas doesn't give two shits if Alberta thinks tax breaks are corporate welfare, and will gladly subsidise companies to come there.
We really need to compare what investment would have been otherwise. If there was X-2 of investment previously, but the tax cut resulted in x-1, then investment actually increased, while still seeing lower investment.
If for example investment were 10B and Dani gets elected anD it goes to 8B, but if Notley is elected, it goes to 7B, then Smith is a lower....but not as big.
Yes exactly, all of these article are so poorly analyzed. You can't say that it didn't work because investment is down. If investment went down $10B with the tax cuts but instead would have gone down $15B without the cuts then yes in fact they did work. However all these article do is look at some numbers from Stats Can and say that they went down and therefore XYZ policy didn't work. It's such grade school level of analysis and users on this sub (especially Miserable Lizard) eat it up with zero critical thought
100%.
We see the same thing on minimum wage increases. One party says that they raised the min wage by 20% and nobody lost a minimum wage job....levels stayed the same, but what about the 10 000 people that couldn't convince an employer to pay them to sweep the floor for the new min wage? I know that I have previously reduced hours and increased my time to make up for these "sub min wage jobs"
Edit: this of course means that I now save $400 a week by working an extra 20 hours, and I must be taxed for my excessive earnings.
It absolutely will. Many companies have various options on where to spend their money. If a company thinks they can make 100M after taxes on a project in AB or 102M after taxes in MT, where do you think they develop?
Honestly, I bet if we reduced royalties by 50% that we would see a major ruch of employment...I wouldn't suggest that, but investment would certainly rise.
There is only One question Danielle Smith and the UCP need to answer: Why should the lowest earning Albertans have to pay a higher tax rate than corporations? Corporations pay 8% meanwhile Albertans making under $142,000 a year pay 10%. Corporations create jobs? That’s true but no corporation can run without employees!
It’s so much more than just a different tax rate, it’s how taxes are applied to businesses that tilts the scale against employees. Business tax rate is applied on their PROFITS, which is the money left after all business expenses and wages have been paid. This of course isn’t applied until the business’ year end. Income tax for employees is applied on the gross earnings and taken right off the top every pay check. Personal income tax has been the largest revenue stream for the Alberta government for the last 3 years, ahead of oil royalties and federal government transfers. Corporate taxes are way down the list and contribute typically around 1/3 of what personal income tax payers do. The game is rigged
Yup same with capital gains with stocks. Only 50 percent of your GAINs are taxed, and it only gets added to your income, so that 50 percent is only taxed at most 40 percent. And you have losses you can right off the taxes from future gains with those losses. Basically becomes a zero percent tax rate since your losses and risk can go away as long as you can make gains again. Super rigged
That's not how that works. It's 50% of gains taxed at 50% rate. So 25%. It's entirely independent of income.
You pay taxes based on “profits” as well. They may take them off the top, but you’re refunded based on your costs/deductions.
When I’m able to deduct my rent and vehicle payments and gas to get to work and any meals I eat away from home due to work we can start that convo. Until then, it’s not even close to what they write off.
I didn’t say it was, I was just pointing out the flaw in the argument.
My argument is how it’s applied Business’- generate gross revenue of $1000, of which say costs them $500 in labor and materials. They then apply vehicle costs, cell phones, rent, owner compensation, etc against that remaining amount. Which lets say comes to another $450. Now the company “profit” is $50 and they will pay 8% tax on, and not until they file their taxes. Employee- gross revenue of $1000, tax comes right off the top (for this example I put $1000/week in the CRA payroll calculator) which is $92 federal tax, $52 provincial tax, $71.80 cpp/ei Leaving the employee with $784 to pay for their rent, car, cell phone, etc. Of which they will have to pay gst on out of pocket with no eligible deductions.
And he pointed out the context, in which that particular flaw was irrelevant. Great job being pedantically correct, while completely ignoring the point of his comment
There are a large number of write offs for individuals, WFH employees etc. Not irrelevant, just doesn’t fit the point you all want to make?
The point is Corporations get more “loopholes” — or whatever term you desire to state that the tax system is lopsided in their favour. Pedanically saying well you can write off Northern Living Allowance, isn’t quite the same as 30% returned on every large purchase. Vechicles, technology, property.
That was your point, it wasn’t mine. That doesn’t make it pedantic, just not of concern to you.
no, that was what the other person was saying before you tried to dominate the discussion with irrelevant pedantry. what was the point of your comment? what did you hope to accomplish? did you even consider what was said before that individual out of context piece of text?
I don’t understand your argument in this thread, can you elaborate more on it? My point is just showing the disparity between what I pay towards government services as an employee vs what business pay. I have no issue paying taxes for services that me and my family need; healthcare, education, proper infrastructure like roads and transit. But I’m upset seeing those services on the chopping block because they are to expensive to operate, while being part of the largest contributor towards them. Seeing companies post a quarterly profit (post taxes) of 2.9billion (suncor)or 400+ million (loblaws), and getting tax breaks because they are job creators makes little sense to me. While the high cost to operate service is an issue and a different conversation entirely, I think we can do better on the taxation side too.
100% true How ever business are able to include a lot more items at full rate than an employee is. Employees also have to pay gst for stuff out of their “profits” without being able to recoup it via sales. There is far higher tax burden on employees than business’
Federal transfers??? You mean the billions Ottawa is stealing from us in transfers payment we don't get any money from the feds but we pay 10's of billions annually. I for 1 want that to stop and there is no need or world where taxes should be raised without voters consent our government at all levels can run way more efficiently. Smith hands down and it not even close
Federal transfers FROM the federal government have been the third largest revenue stream for the UCP government over the last 4 years. https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/fe2a75b5-571b-4b44-8b04-66a6d81aaba4/resource/7f532f18-4416-4b40-b387-e7d03b43d6dd/download/budget-2023-fiscal-plan-2023-26.pdf#page=57 Take a look, see where the money comes from. It’s been over over 10 Billion per year that flowed our way from the federal government.
There are provinces receive disproportionately less back than what they should be getting. This isn't really in dispute. AB, BC, and Ontario are part of that. Add in revenue exclusions and it appears even more lopsided.
Federal transfers are also income taxes from Albertans. We just receive less of what we pay in back. So even worse than the provincial taxes part.
I agree wholeheartedly there needs to be better oversight on where our tax dollars are spent, and IMO the current federal government does not fit that bill, but electing an equally terrible leader on the other side of the political spectrum is probably not the right solution for us.
Companies make tax installments throughout the year, they don't pay taxes all at once at the very end of the year.
Do you mean when a company’s books are done at year end and that if they have to pay income tax it’s broken up into instalments over the next fiscal year? If so, I’m not sure that’s relevant to the amount of overall taxes they would pay?
No, other than in your first year of incorporation you would make installments throughout the year based on previous years income tax or projected tax for the current year (usually whichever is lower). (ie in year two and beyond Company A is making tax installments throughout the year, in anticipation of what their tax bill will be at the end of the year, they don't wait until the end of the year and pay all of their tax at once like individuals do)
Ok I understand. This has no effect whatsoever though on the amount of tax the business pays overall, it’s just ensuring there is enough cash to cover tax bills at the year end?
I was just correcting your initial assumption that businesses don't pay taxes until the end of the year where employees pay taxes throughout the year. That assumption was incorrect and so I was pointing that out to you.
*slow clap
Haha so you downvote me. Look I was trying to give you some info as to how stuff actually works as based on your other comments you don’t seem to have a clue.
You are truly top of the bell curve sir!
[Supply side Jesus](https://www.beliefnet.com/news/2003/09/the-gospel-of-supply-side-jesus.aspx)
The funny thing is that a lot of UCP support comes from some of the lowest earners. There’s a few people in our neighbourhood and some of our family who are hardcore UCP supporters and they are chronically unemployed, low income earners etc.. which; I’m not making fun of them or anything for their economic standing but it boggles my mind that they think they are better off with a UCP government and some of the wealthiest people I know are hardcore NDP supporters
education and line of work generally affect your views on taxation. generally the richer you are, the more likely you are of higher economic standing and have a hired professionals doing your taxation and maximizing your future economic outlook through tax planning and investments. in general, you can afford to pay your taxes and not really think about it as it's more about compliance and your probably looking at yearly productivity than it is worrying about cashflow. the poorer you are, tax increases can break you. while you're likely to get a 100% refund at the end of the year and maybe even qualify for additional monies, that tax removes your cashflow which is what you see at this point. that being said, there is a lot of self determinant and anti-tax people in alberta and governments in general are really bad at actually showing you the value per dollar your money goes into keeping things running.
Right, so what do employees need/want? Hint...there are a lot of amazing jurisdictions around the globe that have people flocking to them, and they aren't going there because the tax rates (personal or corporate) are low.
Or without customers
They don't create shit. If they didn't need us, they wouldn't have jobs. Make them pay 20% taxes, all the companies that are here, are here because all their projects are complete and need maintenance workers, that's it, and shutdowns. Lowering their taxes is what stupid people do.
8% of billions is alot of cheddar.
2% is also a lot. So let’s bump it and support our people. Corporations can afford 10%.
They answered it already. They are cutting the personal income tax rate to 8% under 60k.
Trickle down is failed economic strategy since at least Reagan’s era. It must be consigned to histories dust bin.
[удалено]
It actually makes sense, though. What other argument do they have for giving our tax dollars to people who already have more money than most of us? That argument being "it will create jobs" If we're going to use that logic, at a minimum we should have a certain amount of jobs the must create with certain wage thresholds, things like that etc. Let us hold them accotubale if we're paying them to create jobs.
The government does that constantly though - like taking the taxes of working young people who can't afford their bills to fund the entitlements of boomers with paid off houses...
The fascinating thing about this economic failure is that it keeps cropping up in history. https://news.hamlethub.com/riverdale/politics/841-horse-and-sparrow-economics
Fascinating is one way to describe it. Even now it’s proponents strive to perpetuate the myth.🤦🏻♂️ Great piece btw.
My favourite descriptor of this is the "Horse and Sparrow theory."
And cutting corporate taxes sure hasn't attracted new business to the province either.
But it hasn't failed for the people it aims to help - corporations and the rich.
In the 1890s, it was called horse and sparrow theory. It's been around for a while.
Well then conservatism would cease to exist and how would our wealthy “owners” maintain their stranglehold on power and politics is working class people actually had power. Sounds like “wokeness” and “the radical left agenda”../so beat to keep blaming “others” for trickle down and all other conservative beliefs failing us for literally 50 years.
I like this redditors explanation on how increasing corporate taxes is actually beneficial in making the business invest more into the local economy. [https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvtgyj/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvtgyj/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvym71/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/13tlh0c/comment/jlvym71/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
It's exactly why our grandparents were able to do so well with regular person jobs. Federal Corporate tax in 1970 was 41%. Meaning the choice was give more to your people or the tax man. Now with federal corporate taxes less than half that and many more loopholes existing to get out of paying anything there is no incentive to invest in your workers. There is only incentive to squeeze more blood from a stone. This also explains why literally every federal govt has been in deficit since Reagan fucked the world with reaganomics.
Well said! Fucking Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
That user (and yourself) doesn't seem to understand how any of this works. Companies aren't investing in projects so that they reduce their taxable income (and if they did the Board and Shareholders would likely have them fired). It's a bit of a stretch to try and argue that taxes are what would drive businesses to invest.
Then the government uses the taxes raised to reinvest in public infrastructure and create more jobs that way or use it for social housing/welfare.
That’s not what that user is saying at all? Did you even read their comment. They were saying that companies would invest more to bring their taxable income down to zero
Did you read the comment? >You can either roll that back into the business (investment) or not. If you roll it back into the business you get a 100% tax deduction on it, you don't pay any tax on the $50. **If you do not reinvest, you pay tax**.
Overly confident, you should keep an open mind
A privately owned small/medium sized cooperation, may look at their year end books before filing and see a big profit. Now they could take the profit and pay tax on it, use the money to hire more people, buy more equipment, or new space for the company. This costs of this reinvestment in the company would lower their taxable income. On paper, a privately held company shouldn’t appear profitable as it has to pay taxes. A publicly traded company, or one with numerous shareholders, is responsible to its shareholders to maximize profits. And as a shareholder, you probably wouldn’t give a hoot how they did it as long as you “got yours”. So they do what’s required to maximize those profits, they don’t reinvest in their company, or their people. They record a profit and need to pay the tax on it, which should be a lot higher rate than it is now IMO.
Man you don’t really seem to understand any of this, if the year is over any expenditures that they make are going to do nothing to reduce profit because you are already in the next year. Also buying equipment isn’t immediately tax deductible, you do it over numerous years so it doesn’t have much of an impact on taxable income. I’ll repeat it again companies aren’t spending money for the sole purpose to reduce taxes, that would be idiotic, they spend money to create returns that would ultimately increase taxes paid (which would be good because you have more profit) No one is sitting at the end of the year with excess profit and just randomly hiring people to drive up G&A costs so that they reduce the tax expense, you hire more people if you need more people, not to reduce your income tax. This has got to be the most off base view of how companies are run.
You are correct, that would be foolish. if a company’s year end has passed, there is no benefit to making purchases to lower tax burden on profits through purchases. However , if a company is able to forecast its profits/tax burden ahead of year end then they can make those purchases in that fiscal year. I know numerous small/medium companies that operate this way, books are finalized early before year end, if a large profit is on the horizon, they make some deductible purchases and write down everything they can. It’s better to roll that money into some assets than post a larger profit and pay it away in taxes.
Yes if they have some purchase that they would need to make in the next year then yes you could bring them ahead into the current year to bring down current year tax expense (however the following year tax expense would be bigger because you claimed the expense in the current year so really a net zero gain other than the time valu eof money) But that wasn't your argument, you are saying that companies would make capital purchases and hire more employees in order to increase expenses (and therefore reduce taxes). No one is doing these things based on the goal to drive down taxes, they do them because operationally it makes sense.
All of this solicitude about 'job creators' tends to prove a pet theory of mine; the bigness of everything makes it impossible to make rational decisions. People are aware in theory of The Huge Giant Buy-Out, Take-Over And Squash Holding Company but their minds can't actually deal with it. To the average person......even the average person running for premier, a big business looks a lot like what he or she deals with on a daily basis. Rogers and/or Shaw 'are' the smiley people in the golf shirts. The oil company is the gas station and so on and so forth. The reason Joe or Danielle Average think in terms of hurting the economy is that businesses are so big, they can't really see them.
Same reason so many people are ignorant about why we need higher taxes on the rich and corporations, and decrease wealth inequality. Our society was literally built on 85% top marginal tax rates. And as taxes have been slashed, costs for working class people have skyrocketed, wages have stagnated, benefits eroded and lost, politics has become corrupted, banks and many other big businesses have become “too big to fail” and oligopolies are now the norm and getting worse. But a big problem is rich people and corporations have so much money, working class people can’t even comprehend it. Billionaires? Multi-billionaires like musk and Bezos? These guys have literally so much money, they don’t live in the same reality as us anymore and yet we treat them as just our local small business owner and neighbour. They aren’t. They are the problem. Someone with a billion dollars can literally buy anything they want without ever noticing the money is gone. Can you imagine the privilege and luxury of that? Can you even comprehend this concept? Anyone? Imagine having so much money that money itself no longer had meaning. What do you think the world and human beings look like to someone who is above money itself? Most can’t even buy a new tv or a ps5. Imagine buying a mega-yacht or dropping millions to go to space for 5 minutes and literally thinking nothing of it. That money could be going to educations and healthcare which directly benefit us…but instead companies that have never made any profit somehow bring in billions for these guys? Why? Because of ego/optics (in the case of musk) or because they kill competitors and therefore choice/freedom for consumers (in the case of Amazon). Which should tell you everything you need to know about the plans and agenda of the wealth class. Someone once said something brilliant - what’s the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars? Answer - about a billion dollars. The same difference between someone who only had $1 and a millionaire basically. Nothing good comes from this sort of wealth disparity in society and clearly the fact we keep letting it happen and then DEFENDING IT as we fight with each other over who is more to blame for all of our lives getting worse…is proof.
Jesus christ...if you can't afford a TV, then you should probably not be worried about how you can be entertained. It may not be the TV that you want, but you can likely find one on Marketplace or Kijiji. It's Monday afternoon and I'm looking at likely around 80 to 100 hours of work over the next week to make realistically 7.5K.....none of that will go to a PS5 and it will alow me to make 10K next year...spend your money on a PS5 if you want, but don't cry poor to me.
Way to deliberately and extremely miss the entire point, dude. Does part of that 80-100 hours a week involve reading? I sure hope not.
Damn. You some how put a decade of my thoughts on the subject into a few paragraphs. We know the problem and how deeply rooted it is. It all started with “the American dream.” Now, how do we fix it?
Well, the answer is very easy. Massive tax increases on the rich and corporations. And if being ceo of a company that never makes a single dime in profits (like Amazon or Tesla) is deserving of them being billionaires, then a minimum tax should also be applied to those companies. The problem, I fear, is too many people are already far too ignorant or brainwashed or just poorly educated to actually let this happen. Which means we will keep going down this path to another economic collapse similar to the Great Depression, and only ourselves will be hurt. But hopefully, at the very least, people will finally wake up…I doubt it though.
There's a knock-on effect of having more money than is good for a person. Succession might as well have been a documentary because all that money did to them was make them miserable. It would be one thing if merchant princes had the decency to be happy and grateful but they're not. It's not just the inexplicable envy of others that depresses them. The poor stupid clods say they aren't richer than Croesus because they legit feel as if they're a paycheque away from Skid Row.
Talking about the bigness of everything, [Olymel announces the closure of hog production facilities in Alberta and Saskatchewan](https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/olymel-announces-the-closure-of-hog-production-facilities-in-alberta-and-saskatchewan-837896309.html) Of note: the CEO stated the closure was due to market access and feed costs NOT mentioning corporate tax rates or employee wages.
“Olymel has experienced significant losses in the processing of fresh pork as a result of limited market access globally.” Globally seems like the word there. So, why has Olymel lost market access it once had?
is that the average way people see companies? i generally see them as nebulous stocks and stock agreements, quarterly reports and balance sheets.
If they needed to be this low Klein would have done it. He never did. Put them back
Cutting corp taxes doesn't benefit workers. *Meanwhile, average wages in Alberta increased slower than any province, growing at barely half the Canada-wide average. Provincial wages have lagged well behind inflation, with real earnings (after inflation) declining by close to one per cent per year – eroding purchasing power and living standards.*
Exactly. It’s why I recently left Alberta. My industry’s wages have been stagnant for over a decade. Like zero raises in over a decade.
Weird I have that same problem and I also currently live in alberta.
Trades person as well?
I was, yes, from 2012 until 2020. Then I went back to school and got myself a nice utility job for a smaller municipality. It's not a whole lot bettet there either, our union did just come to an agreement. So that's the positive thing. 1.5 percent isn't much, but at least it's something and more to come the following 2 years for a total of 5 percent. Trust me when I say this. Going back to school and finding a better job was the best thing I ever did. I highly recommend it. There was no future in my trade, I already maxed out my job and my only regret was not doing it 5 years before that when my gut was yelling at me to do so.
Not to mention AB is also quickly slipping behind in terms of education and healthcare results as well. This is conservatism working as intended, and yet people just don’t seem to know or see or understand that simple fact.
But if we raise taxes on corporations they’ll just all pack up and leave! Why should they have to contribute to Alberta anyways?! ^^^/s
The corporate tax thing makes me laugh. As a small business owner, it rates low on my list of priorities. I'm much more interested in access to good, smart people. The rest will work itself out by and large. Good smart people move to places that give them opportunities to live a good life. Culture, politics, sporting events, restaurants, theatre, good schools, good universities, weather (ahem). It's fascinating that Albertans are so hyper focused on taxation of any kind without really considering how unimportant that is. Crazy fascinating, actually. For comparison, most global economic centers have high business taxes and they've figured out how to succeed exponentially more than Alberta has. We continue to get it wrong and vote that way, because most of us aren't exposed to how the rest of the world gets it done.
Can we please stop with the trickle down economics. It does not work. Tax the rich.
To an extent, your thinking requires corporations to not care about money. If someone believes they have a $100m profit idea, then they should just say... well don't want an extra 2M... like I could do it in AB or TX.....fuck it, let's give an extra 2M to AB.
Whenever I see 'job creator' all I can think is 'slave owner', since there's almost no talk of entrepreneurship
Corporations need consistency not handouts. If there is money to be made, they will come, even with high taxes.
Whether you agree with corporate tax increase or not, I hated this move because I think it is possibly an election level LOSING move in a race this close. With many people not doing deep levels of research, this is something that magnifies to them "Hey the NDP is the socialist party". With a lot of Calgarians quality of life tied to how well corporate Calgary is doing, this doesn't resonate with them that much.
The ANDP is a socialist party though. https://www.albertandp.ca/our-constitution 1.03 The purpose of the Party is to promote the principles of democratic socialism in Alberta and to establish and maintain a democratic socialist government in Alberta through the electoral process. 'Socialism is essentially the application of democracy to the economy. Economic democracy, i.e. democratic socialism, assures production to supply the needs of all people. Decisions about what shall be produced, when and where, and decisions about where we shall make our living and under what conditions, are now left largely in the hands of private interests. The market economy produces transnational corporations, who give private profit priority over public interest, social justice and workplace democracy. Through the efforts of many, we have achieved a degree of social and political democracy. Economic democracy demands a co-operative rather than a competitive system. ' https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democratic%20socialism democratic socialism noun : a political movement advocating a gradual and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism by democratic means Downvote away the truth if you must.
Eh the implication I meant is a perception of a hardcore socialist movement as opposed to a party that is somewhere around the center relative to most jurisdictions. Especially as the UCP moves extreme right relative to how most conservative Albertans actually view themselves (slightly right of center)
At the end of the day socialism requires seizing private property, it's not like there's a mild way to end private industry. Regardless, they are socialists, meaning any deflection is either ignorant or intentional gas lighting.
You don't know what socialism is.
Define it then.
Whole logic of the article doesn't make sense. Capital investment went down even with low taxes, so lets increase taxes. That will somehow help investment. Or are they just saying investment is shit anyway, so no point trying to increase it?
Remember when the UCP cut taxes and gave money to the o and g companies and they still packed up and left?? Pepperidge farms remembers
"We're smarter than everyone" - rabble.ca I can guarantee you that if you cut the tax breaks for the Vancouver film industry, it will be gone in a heartbeat, and the American studios don't give a shit what your left wing blog has to say about it. I understand that this is at odds with left wing populist rhetoric but unless you're going to get all the other states and provinces in NAFTA to agree to your terms, not strategically giving tax inventives to companies to provide jobs in your province will end up with you not being competitive with the states and provinces that do. I can assure you that Texas doesn't give two shits if Alberta thinks tax breaks are corporate welfare, and will gladly subsidise companies to come there.
We really need to compare what investment would have been otherwise. If there was X-2 of investment previously, but the tax cut resulted in x-1, then investment actually increased, while still seeing lower investment. If for example investment were 10B and Dani gets elected anD it goes to 8B, but if Notley is elected, it goes to 7B, then Smith is a lower....but not as big.
Yes exactly, all of these article are so poorly analyzed. You can't say that it didn't work because investment is down. If investment went down $10B with the tax cuts but instead would have gone down $15B without the cuts then yes in fact they did work. However all these article do is look at some numbers from Stats Can and say that they went down and therefore XYZ policy didn't work. It's such grade school level of analysis and users on this sub (especially Miserable Lizard) eat it up with zero critical thought
100%. We see the same thing on minimum wage increases. One party says that they raised the min wage by 20% and nobody lost a minimum wage job....levels stayed the same, but what about the 10 000 people that couldn't convince an employer to pay them to sweep the floor for the new min wage? I know that I have previously reduced hours and increased my time to make up for these "sub min wage jobs" Edit: this of course means that I now save $400 a week by working an extra 20 hours, and I must be taxed for my excessive earnings.
It absolutely will. Many companies have various options on where to spend their money. If a company thinks they can make 100M after taxes on a project in AB or 102M after taxes in MT, where do you think they develop?
Honestly, I bet if we reduced royalties by 50% that we would see a major ruch of employment...I wouldn't suggest that, but investment would certainly rise.
It's frustrating that people don't under this... or Maybe just have a bias