[Wiggum_PI]

Breakenridge: Alberta's corporate tax grab has gone missing in political debates

The NDP has never really argued for why the rate increase was necessary and it’s hard to see what it achieved. One can at least point to some defined objectives or perceived outcomes for the carbon tax and the minimum wage increase, but not on this policy.

It was likely a simple revenue grab, but raising corporate tax rates is probably the least efficient and most economically damaging way of trying to do that. Perhaps not surprisingly, not much was grabbed in the way of new revenues.

It has certainly imposed a cost on businesses (which is the point, I suppose) and that cost has predictably been passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices and workers in the form of lower wages. The University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy pegs the annual cost of the corporate tax increase at $830 per two-income household.