Quote:
Originally Posted by Kavvy
I wonder how many individuals moved here during the last 10 years when our taxes were lower.
If there is a significant impact of rich people, and their taxable income, leaving our province now, wouldn't there had been a significant increase of rich foreigners moving here to use our tax rates?
People only seem to use one individual as an example of why higher tax rates don't work, yet don't point to examples of how the lower tax rates brought people here.
Also for clarity, I am avoiding businesses taxes in this point.
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Can't give you a number, but I can say that it was significant. Never mind that, like Ryan Coke, I came to Alberta due to the lower taxes and favourable business climate, I will give you a more significant, though still anecdotal, example.
My wife used to recruit internationally for a large firm (still oversees it). Her firm recruited a significant number of people for positions across the country. Her job was to convince some to come to Calgary, which was actually really easy.
Calgary was one of the 3 most attractive cities, along with Toronto and Vancouver. Toronto because people were familiar with it, and Vancouver because it's beautiful. Calgary was the most attractive, usually, because of taxes and the business climate. These weren't oil jobs, they were professionals and upper management. The types of people that can work anywhere.
I can't recall the exact numbers, but I believe the influx to Calgary was something like 30,000 people a year in the mid 2000s. And that wasn't just for oil jobs, it was all kinds of jobs.
A large influx of workers means more housing (construction, as well as many retail spin-offs), infrastructure, retail, small business, etc. etc.
And most importantly, a rapidly growing tax base.
And that's the thing. Having attractive tax rates grows the economy and grows that tax base. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true.
As someone who has spent a significant amount of time in Alberta and in Manitoba, I have seen both sides of this play out for a long time.
There is a reason that Manitobans say that their primary export is good people.