Who you trying to fool?
KAMLOOPS — For those who follow this column on a regular basis, you probably know that January is a traditional springboard for my semi-annual, ”Who You Trying To Fool?” fees and taxes blog.
So here we are in British Columbia with one of the lowest tax regimes in the country and a government policy intent on keeping it that way. Sounds perfect and we should be the envy of other provinces. However, just as in every other jurisdiction in the West, lower taxes (Reagan and Thatcher supply-side economics) have not created the promised private sector job boom or investment. In fact, this year, B.C. fell from fifth to ninth place for the percentage of our population holding down a full-time job.
What lower taxes have created though — apart from fewer jobs — is a cash crunch for a government that obviously hasn’t thought this tax thing through.
Lower taxes provide good optics but when artificial in every other way, we eventually must come to grips with reality and the two choices it leaves us. Pay more taxes or reduce services, both of which can be politically unpopular and even more so given we are entering an election cycle. So, as a government what do they do for money?