Liberals opt to tax first, ask questions later
I was astonished to read Finance Minister Tom Osborne’s Sept. 2 response to the Telegram’s Aug. 26 editorial (“A taxing tax”).
In the Sept. 2 article the minister stated a broad independent review of tax policy is needed before the government acts because: “Ensuring the province’s tax system is competitive, balanced and less cumbersome will help attract investment and provide an incentive for young families and businesses to put down roots in the province.”
Here is the irony. The approach the new minister of Finance is now proposing is the exact opposite of what the Ball Liberal approach has been since their first Budget of 2016.
When they took office in 2015, instead of commencing a careful, comprehensive review of tax policy as they promised, they barged ahead with sweeping tax changes and admit now in their first Budget they did no review of how their taxes and fees would affect our province.
Those Budget 2016 changes raised and or implemented more than 300 taxes and fees in virtually all areas of revenue generation: income tax, a new levy, insurance tax, gas tax, sales tax, a book tax, business taxes, and higher fees on everything under the sun. With no plan to reduce expenditures. In fact, the 2016 Budget increased expenditures from Budget 2015.
The impact of these tax grabs has been devastating to our economy, just as we warned, and as they would have been informed by others if they had bothered to consult and review implications of their decisions before barging ahead with the lazy “tax-grab” approach to an annual deficit.
These measures continue to severely hurt our economy at a time when low oil prices and other commodities left it vulnerable.
All the economic indicators clearly demonstrate the consequences of the actions. Our employment numbers continue to fall, optimism for small business owners continue to fall, personal bankruptcies have risen and as a July APEC report shows, youth are leaving our province.
We need our young people to stay, build our communities, work, innovate and contribute to our economy. That only happens when a government creates an environment for investment, competitive personal and business taxation, and a positive message to opportunities that exist.
This wasn’t the previous Finance minister’s doing alone. The premier and every cabinet minister signed off on this approach, and every single member on the Liberal caucus benches stood, over and over again, to vote in favour of these tax increases — even as our caucus led a week long filibuster in the House of Assembly to tell government how outraged people were. Without the full support of the Liberal caucus, those tax and fee increases would never have been imposed.
By election year 2019, the Liberals will have spent their entire term of office enforcing the sweeping tax policy changes they imposed “before” they started their tax policy review.
The Liberals not only enacted this sweeping tax grab in the absence of a review, but they left the vast majority of those tax and fee increases in place in their second Budget.
And now they tell us their newly appointed review committee won’t influence their third Budget in 2018 either.
By election year 2019, the Liberals will have spent their entire term of office enforcing the sweeping tax policy changes they imposed “before” they started their tax policy review.
How simple it would have been for them to do the right thing to begin with.
Consult first; get advice on which tax policies are sensible and which are counterproductive; and make the best choices after listening.
Our party’s approach was to keep taxes low, based on evidence that this drives growth by leaving consumers with money to spend, and businesses with money to hire and grow. Remain competitive in business and corporate taxation that encourages investment and growth.
The Liberal review comes too late to undo the damage that four years under their tax grabs will have done to our provinces economy.
Keith Hutchings, MHA Ferryland Official Opposition Critic for Natural Resources