As A Single I am Insulted

Yes I am. This move by the BC Liberals is a bad one and it shows. "Families First?". Last time I looked single people, divorced people,gay and lesbian people and widowed people are part of our society. Ms Clark's plan leaves these folks out and that just stinks.I am voting to axe this tax along with Ms Clark and her government's agenda.

I wouldn't be surprised...

...if voters fall for the Liberals' smoke and mirrors act and vote to keep the HST.

They did, after all, vote these crooked casino capitalists into public office not once, but THREE times.

(continued...)

It has always been about credibility

I signed the petition because I didn't trust them and I will vote to extinguish the tax for the same reason.

If the tax is defeated, and if the Liberals still think it so good and should be saved, then they can make it a major part of their platform in a fall election.

The referendum has become unnecessarily divisive. Now I am supposed to feel guilty because some people will lose on rebate checks if the tax goes down. I am sorry, but if they can find a way to help families that are struggling then they can find ways to help families who are struggling under whatever tax we have. But they have never been too great on that, have they?

I wouldn't be surprised (..continued)

Modern politics is all about spin, corporate media sycophancy, fluff talking PR coached photo/telegenic candidates...and, most importantly, manipulating a naive, gullible electorate to vote against their interests.

Any working-class, or even middle-class, person voting for the BC Liberals or their policies is like a turkey voting for Christmas.

The BC Liberal agenda is making the already wealthy even wealthier and doing it by continually eroding the wealth of already struggling low and middle income earners.

I don't want to burst your

I don't want to burst your bubble David but there are a lot of people who think that Ms. Clark doesn't have any "credibility" to begin with.

another page...

didn't i already read this page? oh yea, it was a page from harper's campaign book. it was titled, 'just don't show up.'
after all the bluster, bs, phoney smiles and even phonier platitudes, christy does not show up to debate the hst at the legs.
didn't we all hear her say that she was just raring to go, could not wait to take on dix in the legislature, eager to debate the hst in question period?? well, yesterday...she pulled another 'harper.' like the by-election debates in point grey, she decided she was just too gosh-darn busy running the province to debate dix on the hst.
i did read this page before....political deja vu. just don't show up, cause you don't have to.

Can't Wait for the Referendum

The majority of we, the citizens of BC, were lied to by the Liberals about the HST. And people took to the streets, organized, organized, organized, and the referendum was set in motion. Now, Clark and the Liberals are worried. And so they should be. As the pre-eminent anti-democratic party in BC, they have done more to thumb their noses at the majority than any party before them.

Maybe Liberal politicians will rethink their contempt for democracy.

Let the referendum go forward. I can't wait to cast my vote and send a direct, democratic message to the Liberals repudiating the HST which was brought in by deceit.

Just as the Liberals make decisions with long term consequences for us, we too will make decisions that they may not like. But because WE elected THEM, they will just have to cope and reinstate the taxation system they foolishly tried to dismantle. After all, this is supposed to be their JOB.

Beware any "Family' rhetoric

Another facade, illusion, misdirection from Crusty!

jim1966 - I agree

I agree with you - as a single I feel insulted too. More - I feel being forced to pay for everyone else's $167 rebate.
Can't wait to mark NO on the ballot.

the 10% solution

It's unfortunate Dix did not use some of Schreck's figures yesterday.

Basically, until the 2014 10% solution kicks in we will finance the corporate savings.

Vote YES on your ballot.

If the Socred Liberal coalition was serious about making equitable changes to the HST they would do it today and not wait until 2014.

I agree with Schreck, had bullheaded Campbell and his cabinet cronies set the HST at 10% from the beginning it would not have created such a mess. One good thing about it though is it got rid of Campbell. Now one more to go, bye bye Christy.

Mark "YES" to vote no on the HST

OhCanada, others...the referendum question is such that an indication of "YES" is actual saying no to the HST...make sure to read the ballot before marking.

Vote yes to cut off our

Vote yes to cut off our noses to spite our faces

Not so.

Vote yes to cut off the BC Lieberals

The Old Adage

The old adage, as to who's ox is being gored, is clearly evident here. The ox being gored is the general populace, and the beneficiaries are those who are already financially better off.

This pattern of shifting the tax burden from those who have more resources to those that have less has being accelerating for more than 3 decades. These are regressive actions initiated by the wealthy, and a one time payoff to those who are less fortunate is miniscule. Every time taxes, based on income are lowered and flat rate fees are introduced instead, the tax burden is shifted to those who have less from those that already have more.

The elite, who are pulling the government levers, want to return to Margaret Thatcher's poll tax methodology. A more progressive tax strategy for society is to return the multi-tiered tax regime that Mulroney and company reduced. Income taxes should be re-established with more and rising rates on higher income earners. If those who are better off do not like this approach, maybe estate taxes should be re-introduced.

The business elite have always found ways to write-off personal expenses. If they can't do it legally, they will do it illegally. Just ask Conrad.

I can't see any of us

I can't see any of us changing our position on the vote. My only concern is the folks who want to get rid of the HST so might vote no, when to get rid of it they correct word is yes.

Yes indeed DPL

"My only concern is the folks who want to get rid of the HST so might vote no, when to get rid of it they correct word is yes."

This is a serious concern. I am quite sure this apparent was carefully thought out and prepared by the Liberals. They, and their coroprate bosses are deceitful, manipulative, mendacious freaks.

Clark and Credibility?

In the same sentence? What an oxymoron! She has no credibility and never will. Oh, and I believe she can see Russia from her living room window!

I'm NDP. And I'm FOR the

I'm NDP. And I'm FOR the HST. And for higher corporate income tax. And for higher personal income tax brackets (which, btw, I pay), and removal of the favoured treatment of capital gains. ANd removing the subsidies to oil and gas and mining (roads in north).
ALL of those.

Why?

Because I'm FOR important public services whose deterioration is eroding everyone's quality of life on a daily basis, starting with
-education
-health (including mental health)
-low income supports & housing
-restoring capacity to manage our resources (forests) and parks
-infrastructure deficits
........ for starters.

It is disheartening that "left wingers" have been seduced into debates which focus on the right wing mantra of too many taxes and which to get rid of. Meanwhile, we ignore what's needed to support a better quality of life for all.

CoCs, Christy, the Zam and even Gordo must be delighted at how we focus on their vision of the issues -- not ours.

Does nobody find this worrying?

DPL writes:
"My only concern is the folks who want to get rid of the HST so might vote no, when to get rid of it they correct word is yes."

Have we become so illiterate (politically and literally) that voters are so easily manipulated and confused by unscrupulous politicos?

A bit of research and preparation, and a careful reading of the ballot should make this a non-issue...but sadly a lot of people really do have trouble with simple English comprehension and as a result are easily manipulated by government and corporations.

Years of anti-intellectual (how dare people learn to think for themselves!) propaganda, and people shunning the written word in favour of television have taken its toll.

The capitalists couldn't be happier.

frank2

If that were the choice then I might agree with you - but it's not.

Canada had a chance to institute a rational progressive and thorough program of tax reform after the report of the Carter Commission was tabled.

It recommended exactly what you've listed - a recognition that income is income no matter how you make it; that a dollar earned from interest, capital gains or dividends is no different from a dollar made digging ditches, taking temperatures or teaching kids in school.

Had the recommendations of the report become law we would live in a more equitable and fairer society today and 5% of the population wouldn't be in charge of 66% of the assets.

Increasing the level of sales taxes on goods and services - paid by the end consumer when that tax is the HST - isn't going to help the situation.

It will only make it worse and drive more and more of an increasingly services oriented workforce into the underground black market.

We DO NEED FUNDAMENTAL TAX REFORM - hanging on to the HST isn't going to make things better.

By the end of 2009, 3.8% of Canadian households controlled $1.78 trillion dollars of financial wealth, or 67% of the total for the whole country.

Hanging on to the HST is simply going to make that story more of a nightmare.

Progressives need to vote YES - but not just because this is a bad tax - they need to vote YES because this is the FIRST TIME IN THIS COUNTRY THAT INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS HAVE BEATEN BACK THE TIDE OF GREED AND SELFISHNESS WHICH HAS BEEN WASHING OVER THIS COUNTRY FOR THE PAST 30 YEARS.

Oh, and for the interested

That statistic about wealthy households came from the annual report by the financial research institute Investor Economics.
It identified 544,000 “high-net-worth” households in Canada as of December 31, 2009, and said they represented 3.8% of all households. The report calculated that this group controlled $1.78 trillion dollars of financial wealth, which they said was 67% of the total financial wealth of Canadian households....

Just so you don't think it was produced by some looney left wing think tank.

Poor Guy

EDITED FOR INSULTING AND BAITING ANOTHER COMMENTER -- MODERATOR over a government report from nearly 50 years ago, The Carter Report.

G West:
"Canada had a chance to institute a rational progressive and thorough program of tax reform after the report of the Carter Commission was tabled."

Did you bounce it off John Cummings?

Now. Nearly a half a century later:
Kevin Milligan is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia;

'In the 1960s, Kenneth Carter’s Royal Commission on Taxation studied the question of the tax unit and determined that the family is the best basis for the income tax.

A very prickly problem arises in applying the family principle, however. What’s a family? Carter’s definition clearly referenced the social environment of the era -- maybe in 2011 our society has changed. Among Canadians from Asian backgrounds, for example, elders are considered a core part of the family unit. Moreover, social acceptance of same-sex couples has certainly increased over the decades. Neither of these family types were embraced in the Carter Commission definition, but a great many Canadians would be quite offended to be told their family is not a ‘family’ by the Canada Revenue Agency. "

Ahhr, the good old days. When a loaf of bread was 35 cents and a cup of coffe was 15. When a man was a man and woman was a woman and the family was home. Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister and Jimi Hendrix played at the Pacific Coliseum. Take us back! Who are these old nostalgic people?

The fundamental point about the Carter Commission

The fundamental point about the Carter Commission, which Milligan seems happy to ignore, is that (and here I'll let the Commission speak for me)...
As we have frequently stated in this Report equity requires that taxes be allocated in accordance with ability to pay.

We believe this can only be achieved when those with larger incomes bear relatively
heavier taxes . Unless income is taken into account in the sales tax system, either by exempting "necessities" or by allowing credit and refunds against personal income tax liabilities for sales taxes paid, general sales taxes are, by our definition, inequitable.

This follows because it is reasonable to assume that most general sales taxes, regardless of their level or form, are ultimately borne by consumers of goods and services.

Consumption expenditures are not a constant proportion of income. The proportion is lower the greater the income of the individual or family.

A general sales tax on all consumer goods and services, without exemptions or, alternatively, without credits against personal income tax liabilities,
would therefore be regressive.

It would impose relatively heavier tax burdens on those with low incomes. This is the antithesis of taxation according to
ability to pay.

Taken from the Report of the Royal Commission on Taxation, Mr . Kenneth LeM. Carter, Chairman at Volume 5, Part A....

(emphasis added)

Fair taxation

G West is correct in stating that all income should be treated equally when assessing earnings with respect income tax levies. No one likes taxes, no matter the type, but of all the forms of taxation we have imposed upon us, income tax is the best assessment simply because it is the only progressive type of taxation. Income tax levies are based on the ability to pay by virtue of the fact that they are assessed on the income earned by each individual.

Sales taxes such as the GST, HST and PST are all regressive because they assess a form of taxation based only on the cost of a product or service at a defined rate which impacts disproportionately depending on income.

In my estimation, government should be able to fund most of their financial requirements through the collection of one tax, that being one based on income.

Financial Transaction Tax

The FTT is probably one of fairest of taxes as it is not based so much on consumption, as on the exchange of wealth. A simple .005% Financial Transaction Tax would replace the PST, GST, HST, Land Transfer Tax, Inheritance Tax and if changed to .01% would also replace Income Tax. This short video on the Robin Hood Tax will give you a clear idea of the power of the FTT. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYtNwmXKIvM

frank2

"It is disheartening that "left wingers" have been seduced into debates which focus on the right wing mantra of too many taxes and which to get rid of. Meanwhile, we ignore what's needed to support a better quality of life for all."

What I find disheartening is to hear an NDPer supporting a tax that shifts taxation from corporations and high income earners onto middle and low income earners.

You say you support higher corporate taxes yet you don't let that belief guide your decision on the HST.

Lots of people support higher taxes but only because those higher taxes support things we consider to be in the realm of the public good.

If we could have great health and education without paying for it there would be no reason for supporting higher taxes at all.

But we certainly don't support higher taxes when the money goes only to lessen the load on business and the rich. Why would we?

Trust???

Mr Schreck raises a good point when he asks if the BClibs will use "unexpected" circumstances as an excuse to cancel or alter these "fixes".
This party has a decade long record of lies and deceit and despite a change of leader the same dubious people remain in power.
It's even harder to trust this gov't when they appear so desparate to win the hst referendum; will they accept defeat or demand a re-vote?

Thank you Frank2

Thanks for the great comment Frank2.

We can all agree that the way the HST was brought in was reprehensible. Campbell had to resign because of that.

We can also agree that the HST, like the GST and PST, is regressive.

The challenge with this referendum is that it should, at this point, be about tax policy. While it is correct that the HST may be criticised for being regressive, this is not an analytically sound reason to replace it with the just as regressive PST and GST.

Moreover, everybody is criticising Clark for her little goody exemptions (as they should), but are ignoring the fact that the chief argument by supporters for returning to the PST is that it has far more of these goody exemptions (be they for rich or poor).

Shreck's 'analysis' throws in a bunch of figures without explaining that these cost figures (how much it affects families) really CAN be remedied (by an NDP government for example) by lowering the HST even more in the future, perhaps until it withers away. But these figures and arguments are not reliable ones on which to arrive at a conclusion that we should revert to the GST/PST.

While I clearly do not support regressive taxes in general, I believe at this time it would make more sense to keep it than to go back to the even more irrational and just as regressive PST and GST.

Given that Campbell had to step down, I will vote at this point based on reason and not rhetoric.

Speaking of rhetoric, my big question as a long time NDP supporter is when will we finally get activists/leaders that will cater to the public's intelligence and not its ignorance.

In all their articles about the HST, my impression is that Tieleman and Schreck rarely actually address the tax policy issues in an instructive manner. My impression is that they engage in the same obsfucation tactics as those they criticise.

I believe I recall that these same pundits were at the forefront of fighting against electoral reform as well as formenting significant confusion about putting a price on carbon pollution.

I would prefer if The Tyee would request information from these well-known commentators about who is paying them for their lobbying efforts if they are going to continue to provide articles to this site.

In the end, my experience has been that the criticisms of the NDP when it comes to economic matters are partially justified, and I am worried that it won't get better until things change.

It's kind of like the policy of the NDP to essentially just scream "Campbell doesn't care" and "Campbell is bad" no matter what what the policy issue was. Any government who gets into power with those types of discursive tactics, doesn't deserve much better. There's no credibility in it.

It is a good reason to vote "yes".

This provides the opportunity to start over with enough direction about what to avoid.

Amor de Cosmos

Why not get rid of the PST completely then by increasing the corporate tax?

If they can lower the HST by 2% by increasing corporate tax by 2% then can they not get rid of the provincial portion of the HST altogether by increasing corporate taxes by another 5%? It would still leave corporate taxes pretty low in relation to other countries.

Do that and everyone's happy. Even business should be happy if getting rid of the PST is as wonderful for them as they say it is.