The 2017 budget

employers. Beyond that, it is about the dignity of workers and the control that they have over their lives.

The 2017 Budget reflects those sentiments. The current government has gone further than the previous administration by increasing the number of exemption thresholds and the amount of the exemption in each category, thereby reaffirming its desire to see positive changes in the lives of workers. It has also adjusted the tax rate and added a new one. The two exemption thresholds and the two nominal tax rates reflect a desire for greater burden sharing in the allocation of economic resources between the government and the people through the ability-to-pay principle. In doing so, the Granger administration has made a conscious decision to reduce the proportionate burden that lowincome workers were carrying and to shift it to the well-off. The government has decided to increase the exemption threshold from $55,000 in 2016 to $60,000 per month in 2017. This move by the government has resulted in more money remaining in the hands of the low-income taxpayers and gives them greater flexibility to manage their lives.

Doubt about the positive impact of the direct tax policy of the current government and its reach beyond philosophical feelings about the poor is removed as can be seen from the data in the Table below. Table 1 contains data with a 2009 start year. The selection of that year was driven by the fact that the previous government used it as the new base year for the Consumer Price Index (CPI). In that year too, the government increased the exemption threshold to $35,000 suggesting that the choice of exemption amount was enough money to satisfy the needs of the poor.