This edition of Work Life forms part of the research by CCPA’s National Office for an upcoming report, "Working across Canada" which will analyze quantitative and qualitative data to determine where workers are more likely to have decent jobs and be protected by adequate employment and labour standards.
Taxes and tax cuts
Hennessy’s Index is a monthly listing of numbers, written by the CCPA's Trish Hennessy, about Canada and its place in the world. For other months, visit: http://policyalternatives.ca/index
Hennessy’s Index is a monthly listing of numbers, written by the CCPA's Trish Hennessy, about Canada and its place in the world. For other months, visit: http://policyalternatives.ca/index
Ottawa – Quatre-vingt-six pourcent (86%) des familles Canadiennes ne bénéficieront en rien du fractionnement du revenu que le gouvernement fédéral entend mettre en place selon une étude publiée aujourd’hui par le Centre canadien de politiques alternatives (CCPA).
OTTAWA—Eighty-six percent of Canadian families would gain no benefit from the proposed Conservative income splitting plan, says a new study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
This study examines the cost and the distributional impact of three income splitting scenarios: pension income splitting; income splitting for families with children under 18, as the Conservatives have pledged; and income splitting for all families. The study finds that the impact of income splitting in all scenarios is very unequal and the lost revenue for Canadian governments would be substantial.
The City of Winnipeg has released its proposed operational and capital budgets for 2014. As in previous years, it is hard to see the vision in this budget or the direction it is taking. Many believe there is no long-term plan guiding political decisions, but one theme does persist: business taxes (and hence scarce revenues) are lowered at the same time as expenditures needed for the sound management of the City are cut. In this budget, already scarce City of Winnipeg workers are forced to take days off without pay.
This commentary was also published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Oct 17, 2013.
The opposition’s unproductive filibuster of the provincial 2013 budget increase in the PST has left many aspects of the budget undebated. One is its failure to provide for improvement in the Employment & Income Assistance Program (EIA – aka “welfare”) in the face of a well-documented pressing need. In contrast, the budget eliminates the Education Property Tax (EPT) for all seniors in 2015 – a measure which has very little basis and two and a half times the price tag.
This article is based on a speech delivered in 1995 at a CCPA conference in Ottawa by U.S. economist James Tobin, who died in 2002 at the age of 84. A prominent supporter of Keynesian economics and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1981, Prof. Tobin is now widely known for his suggested imposition of a tax on foreign exchange transactions. Such a tax, he argued, would reduce speculation in the international currency markets, which he saw as dangerous and unproductive.
We have argued previously that British Columbians are open to tax increases, and that the province would be well advised to increase revenues so that we can invest in services that improve our quality of life (such as affordable child care, seniors care and better public transit). It also needs to ensure everyone — especially those at the top and corporations — pays a fair share.