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Originally Posted by Flash Walken
nah, actually resource revenue is a greater proportion of alberta government revenue now that it was in the 90s. That's the economic legacy of the PC governments of the last 30 years. It's becoming lower and lower now out of bare necessity, but it's not a strategy, it's a reaction to market forces any serious economist saw coming.
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Doesn't seem too different than the 90s, hovering somewhere in the low 20% range. In the 80s it was almost 40% of GDP.
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I also understand the corporate taxes argument. I can get behind arguments that favour exceptionally lower corporate tax rates. The problem is, the 'fiscally conservative' governments weren't making tax policy based on mainstream economics, they've been making it on ideology. I simply can't support that kind of willful blindness in the face of being wrong.
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Corporate income tax isn't all that high anyhow, and small businesses have a really low rate. The US was actually one of the highest taxed countries until orangeman came along.
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And BC's housing bubble is a HUGE problem. It shouldn't make Albertans feel any better to point to a neighbouring province also looking at revenue shortfall deficits as a reason it's OK Alberta's 'fiscally conservative' governments paved the way. If anything, it should help them question even further just how 'fiscally conservative' modern conservative movements actually are.
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Point being, people believe that Alberta is a "one-note" province, when in fact other provinces also are "one-note". Like people believe that opening up cat cafes is the path to taxation success.
Probably the best most obvious taxation policy change is to remove the cap gains exception for selling your primary residence. It would be incredibly unpopular though, but it's very efficient (it's really, really hard to hide the fact that someone's sold a house). For cities, the best thing is to put in progressive property taxation. Again, incredibly unpopular but very efficient and much more fair than the current regressive taxation.