It was really very funny last Thursday when conservative leader Doug Ford got pompously to his feet to harangue the liberal government for their election budget. It seems that towards the back of the budget book there is a tax increase for the top 17 per cent of wage earners.
The effect of this tax, on average, means that anyone with taxable earnings of $130,000 per year will pay an additional $200 in tax to Ontario. Doug Ford was horrified. Imagine a tax increase for those who can most afford it! Okay, it is one less dinner at a fancy restaurant for you and the wife. Think of all the good you are doing with the money.
But Doug Ford was horrified. He was outraged at this egregious affront to the wealthy taxpayers he wants to represent at Queen’s Park. Some how, Ford got in his mind that the tax applied to everyone in the household. He thought if it was a family of five, each would pay the government an additional $200. He was wrong. The facts are that if the other four people in the household are all dependents, the taxpayer would not pay the additional until they earned quite a bit more than $130,000.
Ford must have also been confused between the difference in gross income and taxable income. The problem with people such as Ford is that they never do their own taxes. They have an accountant for that.
Yet the money is to help our citizens who most need the assist. It is for day care for the youngest children when they are the most vulnerable. It is for our seniors to stop nickel and diming them for prescription drug co-payments. It is to increase the funding to keep seniors in their homes longer. It is to increase the number of mental health professionals in the province to meet the needs of our young people.
Obviously, Mr. Ford has different priorities. He does not seem worried about our environment. He thinks he can come up with billions by just cutting some fictitious waste. How he will achieve that when the bulk of our provincial expenditures are on education and health needs, he will wait until he is in office to find out. When you bore down on Mr. Ford’s approach, you find out he has no idea how to magically balance budgets or provide funds for tax cuts.
Doug Ford is just blowing smoke.
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Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
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