Even if we set Corporate taxes to 11% they would still be the lowest in the country and it would result in a few billion in additional revenue.
We should raise the corporate tax rate to 10-11%, but this would likely only bring in about an extra billion per year. Corporate taxes collected total 8 Billion in the most recent year, which also includes all the small business taxes whose rate won't change. Businesses also allocated more income to Alberta since our rate is lower, which they would stop doing if it was equal to other provinces.
Bumping the personal tax rates would help more, but it needs to start at the 12% rate and probably go up 1% or so for each one. Ideally you would keep the total top tax rate in Alberta at 49% (currently 48%). You'd be surprised how many people in other provinces go way out of their way to avoid a 50% plus rate. It's a mental block for a lot of people, so avoiding this by staying at 49% is likely best to collect the most amount of taxes.
But to fund everything in Alberta, you need a PST. If we don't want to be wildly reliant on Oil revenues, then you have to admit our province isn't special and we need a PST like every other province. It can be 5% which would still be the lowest in Canada, but it's necessary to fund Health and Education to the level they should be funded at.
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This is the conundrum Nenshi faces if he wins. I'm sure he recognizes Alberta can no longer be without a PST, but he'll get roasted for implementing one. So we get another four-year blip in the forever-conservative province, and any work he's done to improve things will get undone—or worse—when Alberta voters get mad and vote conservative again.
Honestly, I think the provincial government would have more than enough money to fund all of the desired services if they eliminated the monstrous list of wasted money, grifts, and lost investment in Alberta that the UCP causes regularly.
Adjusting the corporate tax would likely be enough to close the gap, but I think taxing the richest brackets is also a solid move to boost revenue. I would make a new bracket that is higher than the top one (7 figures) and give it an even bigger tax rate.
Those things should be enough to avoid a PST and still fund services way beyond their current levels.
In what world do Politicians ask 7 figure earners to pay more in taxes? They don't dare bite the hand of those who fund them. Let alone that most of them don't have their earnings as income.
There's a healthy number of Albertans in the 100 to 150 range who can have their rate dialed up a 1.5% and all the other brackets above that move up to suit. For most of these people it's not like they can go to BC or Ontario and find a better paying job there with lower taxes and lower cost of living.
Rich people can move...losers like me who hope to get into that range...we're not as mobile.
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I tried digging into this, and struggled to find data: did class sizes go down in the last 30-35 years?
At least at my school in the early '90s (smaller school, gr 1-9), it was a big deal when Klein was gutting..well, everything. My grades one and two class sizes hovered around 30, and I specifically remember grade three there was something like 33 kids, and parents were buying pitchforks, my mom among them.
Most of the core class stuck around til grade six, then there was a huge drop in grade seven. But I think I remember my younger brother had slightly lower numbers, he was in grade one when I was in grade eight. He may have even been in a 1/2 split, or maybe it was a 2/3--no idea if it was a numbers issue or what.
Or we could not allow religious indoctrination of children at all. That would be a real win for society.
I am not religious. My kids were in the Catholic system. Why? It’s flat out just better run. They are better at educating my child, the religious aspect isn’t indoctrination my kids enjoyed learning about it. At least they got to have Christmas, not like the “winter carnival” at public schools, who then also celebrate every other religious timeframe by name.
If they chose to dissolve the Catholic system then I would hope they dissolve the CBE and start over. The CBE is a sick and broken ivory tower who bargained a terrible deal for their ivory tower where they spend the equivalent to damn near a hundred new teachers just to have their fancy house. While still owning the old one.
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This is the conundrum Nenshi faces if he wins. I'm sure he recognizes Alberta can no longer be without a PST, but he'll get roasted for implementing one. So we get another four-year blip in the forever-conservative province, and any work he's done to improve things will get undone—or worse—when Alberta voters get mad and vote conservative again.
I think if the best case scenario is the the Nenshi NDP get into power and implement a 5% PST. They likely get tossed afterward because they wouldn't run on that platform, but just like the increased personal tax rates, the next government would leave the PST in place. It took the NDP last time to get us off the flat 10% personal tax rate for all income brackets.
I also think a PST would be fine. The very lowest income families would receive a PST rebate similar to the GST rebate. The rest would just have to pay it to fund the hopefully best services in the country.
I think if the best case scenario is the the Nenshi NDP get into power and implement a 5% PST. They likely get tossed afterward because they wouldn't run on that platform, but just like the increased personal tax rates, the next government would leave the PST in place. It took the NDP last time to get us off the flat 10% personal tax rate for all income brackets.
I also think a PST would be fine. The very lowest income families would receive a PST rebate similar to the GST rebate. The rest would just have to pay it to fund the hopefully best services in the country.
I would rather have a PST than increases to the income tax rate. The PST will capture revenue from people who are in Alberta, but do not file income tax here. I know lots of people who earn their money in Alberta, but do not pay Alberta income tax. Also increase hotel tax and tax Airb&b (maybe 1.5x the hotel tax.
If this increases revenue enough, maybe they can lower the income tax rate a little bit. (lol).
Hotels in Calgary are some of the most expensive in the country. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer my friends and family to be able to afford to visit once in a while (but I’m not so mental so as to want them to stay at my place), so no to increasing hotel tax.
As for PST versus income tax, a PST would be a regressive tax. Increase it 1% on the top three tax brackets, that should be enough. I say that as someone who would get ensnared in such an increase, and I’m okay with that.
Hotels in Calgary are some of the most expensive in the country. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer my friends and family to be able to afford to visit once in a while (but I’m not so mental so as to want them to stay at my place), so no to increasing hotel tax.
As for PST versus income tax, a PST would be a regressive tax. Increase it 1% on the top three tax brackets, that should be enough. I say that as someone who would get ensnared in such an increase, and I’m okay with that.
I'd greatly prefer consumption taxes over income taxes. They're efficient, and you can structure them to avoid the regressive aspect.
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Hotels in Calgary are some of the most expensive in the country. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer my friends and family to be able to afford to visit once in a while (but I’m not so mental so as to want them to stay at my place), so no to increasing hotel tax.
As for PST versus income tax, a PST would be a regressive tax. Increase it 1% on the top three tax brackets, that should be enough. I say that as someone who would get ensnared in such an increase, and I’m okay with that.
It's not though. If I recall correctly, 5% PST is something like 10 billion dollars. 1% on the top 3 tax brackets might be something like 50 million.
The issue is that there's just not enough rich people to tax to meet the scale of services we want.
I'd greatly prefer consumption taxes over income taxes. They're efficient, and you can structure them to avoid the regressive aspect.
I think people who think that you can structure consumption taxes so as not to be regressive, is either think explicitly of luxuries, tourism, new build housing, new cars... But I do worry about loopholes and administrative burdens related to taxes that are focused too narrowly. Or they have not clue how oppressive it is living truly pay cheque to pay check (without credit), spending $50/month on GST, then getting a $50 gst credit back at the end of the month is not a null outcome for the poor, they will experience interest and fees on things like predatory pay day loans, or purchase smaller packaging at higher per unit cost, while waiting for the credit, and will come out money behind.
It also ignores the re-enforcing cycle of capital, and how differing taxation on the wealth helps to perpetuate wealth gaps, and the wealthy often able to net returns on the money they are holding before the they spend it, effectively nullifying what the tax would have been if leveed at the time of income. I think there is an argument that if capital were a major constraint on ventures than this would be a negative, but we just haven't lived in the world in decades. Capital is all over the world begging for somewhere to go, to the point that people a creating make believe baseless asset classes just to trade capital around like virtual poker chips.
In our current environment there is basically no way to have a consumption tax that isn't regressive, some times regressive taxes are OK, depending on your goals. If you are trying to create vice taxes on non-essentials (like smoking), and sometimes in history the economic balance has not favored capital and investment has needed to be spurred. But right not we live in more of an idea gap than an investment gap, which is one of the reasons governments should be taking more on income and wealth to fund higher quality liberal arts, to help create the next ideas.
Alright, week 2 of strike. Doesn't look like this is ending any time soon so I signed up to work the Calgary election. Training on Tuesday and then Election Day on the 20th! Might as well make a little bit of money if I'm just hanging around.
I've been getting some projects done around the house, hanging out with the kids, and I played golf on Thursday. What else does a guy do? Can't sit on the Internet all day #### talking MLA's on Facebook.
Last edited by malcolmk14; 10-11-2025 at 02:56 PM.
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More from Nenshi. I really appreciate how well he knows Smith. The soundbite he threw in there where he says that Smith wrote a paper years ago saying she would eliminate public education is the kind of skeleton in her closet that exposes how far she is willing to go with this nonsense.
I think this is going to come down to recalling a UCPer. Let's start with Nicolaides.
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