Monday, August 29, 2011

After The Gold Rush....Where To Find New Revenue In A Post-HST B.C.

AllTheWaterThatCanNoLongerBeCarried
GermanSUVVille


Now that we know that the richiest of the Richie Rich ridings in British Columbia voted, pretty much overwhelmingly, to keep the HST, maybe they, together with their neighbour and all around swell guy, Mr. Bill Good, can tell their very finest-of-the-fine Finance Minister that they would be happy to do their part to raise tax revenues in a post-HST world.

How could they possibly do this you may be asking yourself?

Well, they could go back to the future and start paying a wee little bit extra themselves, starting, perhaps, with that 3% they used to pay on the majority of the cars lined up in their circular driveways (ie. those vehicles with a sticker price over $55,000).

Why?

Because, as another of their team's finest purveyors of Smart Alliance-backed 'conventional' wisdom, Ms. Alise Mills, who has also done some truly important almost, but perhaps not quite, tax revenue generating as an online gambling business promoter, told CBC's BC Almanac listeners Friday afternoon, consumption taxes are, you know....

Progressive!

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Heckfire.

Removing that 3% luxury tax was such a boon to the sale of all those Unicorns....errrr....German SUV's that, back in the weeks just after the HST was introduced last summer, the President of the New Car Dealers Association of British Columbia actually crowed about it:

By Blair Qualey,
President and CEO of the New Car Dealers Association of BC


"With the introduction of the Harmonized Sales Tax in British Columbia on July 1, some misinformation has surfaced as related to the HST and its affect on new car purchases. In fact, the new HST has zero effect on the amount of tax that will be paid on a new car, and some consumers will even pay less for their vehicle under the new tax rules.

New car dealers across BC are receiving phone calls from consumers who are concerned that the new blended tax will make a new car unobtainable. The reality is that both the GST and PST, which are blended together to form the new HST, were already charged on all new vehicle purchases prior to the introduction of the blended tax.

This means that the total tax we must charge on a new vehicle remains exactly the same – 12 per cent – as it did prior to July 1.

Some new vehicle consumers will actually find savings with the HST when they visit our showrooms, in that its introduction means the elimination of the vehicle “luxury tax” of up to 3 per cent on new cars worth more than $55,000...."


So.

Again, Mr. Good and neighbour friends, please think of the children and ask your Finance Minister, which so many of you have help to buy and pay for, to do your part for all of them.

After all, as your Shillophants have been telling us for some time now (ie. way before Ms. Style/Mills crossed over from online gambling boosting to fact-challenged/host-unchecked CorpMedia political punditry in earnest), consumption taxes really are the most progressive.

Right?


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And I must note, as is so often the case, Norm Farrell was way out front on this one.
Graphical representation of riding income to voting preference correlation can be found here.

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1 comment:

Canadianbud said...

How very true, and great work Ross, and to all the others who know that our govt is eliminating the "middle class" in support of their "Upper class" actions which, they tout, are the best for BC people.

I'm still scratching my head on how it's best for them (govt workers) to make 5-7 figure paychecks while the real workers such as blue-collar, small businesses, schools and community support groups (low income subsidies) who actually make this province exist/work are being slashed by the dozens as being "non-essential" or not worthy of funding (as the money has been allocated to some off-shore acct).

Govt employees (MLA's + MP's) are the new cash cow job and more people are giving up in disgust as no matter how loudly we scream.. it just falls on deaf ears, or the govt won't respond to direct unscripted questioning, or the old "I never saw that as my team deals with those details" is consistently stated (plausible deniability? meanwhile they've signed off on the very thing they claim no knowledge of), or the govt funded media spin twists it into something outrageous and nonsensical.

I apologize for the ramble, it's just hard to stop as there's just so much crap happening, it takes many such bloggers as yourself and Laila to keep it all in some sort of perspective.
Thanks for the all the hard work!