TENS - Taxed Enough Nova Scotians
- Thread starter atlanticaparty
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Being in Nova Scotia where we have soon to be the highest sales tax in the country and currently the 2nd highest income tax structure a movement like this can gain a lot of traction. Nowhere does the OP suggest that government services should be totally gutted or that taxes even be reduced (although I thnk they should be; not just in Nova Scotia but in other provinces and federally as well).
I don’t know if Nova Scotia is running any deficit (but since many provinces are, I assume NS is running deficit as well).
Now I don’t know about NS, but Ottawa is running a substantial deficit (though nowhere near what USA is running). In this situation, it will be irresponsible in the extreme to even talk of cutting taxes.
If anything, tax increase and spending cuts with the view of balancing the budget is required (or will be required shortly, once economy has sufficiently recovered).
" In this situation, it will be irresponsible in the extreme to even talk of cutting taxes."
I find it rather ironic that you are so in favour of taxes and yet taxes adversely affect the people who are on the low end of the income scale and yet when it comes to health care these are the people you seem most concerned out. LOL
I find it rather ironic that you are so in favour of taxes and yet taxes adversely affect the people who are on the low end of the income scale and yet when it comes to health care these are the people you seem most concerned out. LOL
Has anybody asked why they are giving you (what some here think is an honor) to be one the highest tax Provinces in the Commonwealth. What will the citizen gain from this tax? What do some want to do with this money?
I assume you are talking of user fees. User fee is not a tax, JLM. It is charge for a service, charged in such a way as to have harmful effects on the poor and middle class. But I have no problem with income tax (which hits the rich more than it hits the poor, which is as it should be).
I am all for government raising reasonable revenue through taxes, but I am adamantly opposed to user fee in medicine (I have no problem with user fee for non essential services). In my opinion, medical care must be free at the point of delivery. Time to charge the patients is before the delivery, somewhere along the line (like through the income tax), but not at the point of delivery.
I assume that is because it is a very small province. With a smaller tax base, government has to tax the citizens more to provide the services people want. I think Newfoundland (another tiny province) also has a high tax rate (unless it has come down, now that they have oil)
Yes, but are the people asking for more improvements or is it the politicians? The discovery of oil sure has a way of reducing local taxes.
If I am reading this right, it pertains solely to the opinion of one poster. I personally feel I'm more qualified to speak to this issue being a member of the moderate income category, taxes are NOT an honour and they are NOT a solution to helping our country of a recession. Gov'ts are not particularly competent when it comes to spending money. Unemployment is the single biggest financial problem we have in this country and the way to cure that is to have a greater demand for goods and services. Who demands these good and services? The people of the country when they have the money in their pockets them. How is taking money out of their pockets going to put them in position to fill this demand?
I agree with what you say totally. Just that some people here think the answer to everything is that more taxes will solve everything, not realizing that this burden will fall upon the middle class. (poor will pay little or no tax and the rich will somehow get it reduced or get out of it altogether).
That is the classic supply side economics, cut taxes, everything else will take care of itself.
Now, that may have worked sometime in the long past. However, every time it has been tried in the recent memory, if has been an unmitigated disaster. It has shot the deficit sky high, every time it has been tried.
But conservatives never seem to learn from experience, they still tout the same old mantra of tax cuts. Well, in my opinion it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand tax cuts without saying where the money is to be found, what spending cuts you would do to balance the budget. Would you cut health care, would you cut defense, would you cut payment to battered wives shelter? What?
When you demand tax cuts without specifying spending cuts, that tells me that you are simply spouting classical conservative philosophy, tax cuts at any price, hang the debt and the deficit.
The Progressive Economics Forum » Back to Balance in Nova Scotia
"The annual cost of poverty to Nova Scotia is $2.3 billion dollars, with over $600 million of that in direct costs to the provincial government."
This interests me regarding how we spend our tax dollars. At 2.3 billion that would represent 23,000 per person in the whole province if if the figure I have of less than 1 million people total in the province is correct.
I would drop the 600 million and divide the balance equally between every living soul in NS. That would mean for the average household the base line income would be anywhere from 40,000 in a house with a couple to 60,000 and more if there are children or grandparents living there. Any household would have a bottom line of 20,000 at one person. That is everyone. With a little thought it is easy to see that a base line income such as this would nullify the poor, the need for UI or welfare.
A base line income of 20,000 per person would increase the tax structure of the province many times and also make minimum wage work.
I can think of a lot of ways to spend that 2.3 billion effectively and I can't think of any way to justify how it is currently spent. If I were going to start a movement in NS of any kind it would be one to address this.
The stalemate....
We, as civilians, do not think the government can spend money effectively.
The government, in return, does not think we as civilians can spend money effectively.
So, we have banks and social programs which make us waste too much money and time on distrust.
"The annual cost of poverty to Nova Scotia is $2.3 billion dollars, with over $600 million of that in direct costs to the provincial government."
This interests me regarding how we spend our tax dollars. At 2.3 billion that would represent 23,000 per person in the whole province if if the figure I have of less than 1 million people total in the province is correct.
I would drop the 600 million and divide the balance equally between every living soul in NS. That would mean for the average household the base line income would be anywhere from 40,000 in a house with a couple to 60,000 and more if there are children or grandparents living there. Any household would have a bottom line of 20,000 at one person. That is everyone. With a little thought it is easy to see that a base line income such as this would nullify the poor, the need for UI or welfare.
A base line income of 20,000 per person would increase the tax structure of the province many times and also make minimum wage work.
I can think of a lot of ways to spend that 2.3 billion effectively and I can't think of any way to justify how it is currently spent. If I were going to start a movement in NS of any kind it would be one to address this.
The stalemate....
We, as civilians, do not think the government can spend money effectively.
The government, in return, does not think we as civilians can spend money effectively.
So, we have banks and social programs which make us waste too much money and time on distrust.
I wonder, if the increased tax structure due to the stability in the base line income of every household in NS would generate enough returned tax money to cover the yearly deficit we acquire due to trying to fund the 2.3 billion in the first place. Instead of the majority of that funding going to pay for the government services needed to operate the fund coupled with the cost of the many non government services that this article doesn't list.
All you're doing at this point is paying people to live in N.S.
Does this really make sense?
Hi Captain Morgan, well since we spend the money anyways why don't we spend it right. At the end of the day there are so many things that need to change and most of them are directly related to a person's access to money. I resent paying almost half of that fund to people who are not poor because the government thinks we/I could not spend the money more wisely for myself.
There could be a lot of room to reduce taxes if we wanted to reduce the fund to cover only a base line income for a poor person. Again it would be the removal of the middle people (most of them) and the associated cost that would make the difference.
One thing that always floats around in the back of my mind is that we need to find a way to reduce production/waste and inflation. We need to find a way to reduce the need for jobs because we cannot keep heading in this direction where everyone on the planet needs to work to live. We are killing ourselves and our planet. However, IMO it will be discussions on sharing resources properly and (tax dollars and the like) that will pave the way to finding new ways to do things that in the end achieve the means we seek.
So, how do we share that 2.3 billion effectively and/or how can we reduce it.
Since we set it aside anyway...to share it equally in some way does reduce the pressure for more jobs and more taxes.
There could be a lot of room to reduce taxes if we wanted to reduce the fund to cover only a base line income for a poor person. Again it would be the removal of the middle people (most of them) and the associated cost that would make the difference.
One thing that always floats around in the back of my mind is that we need to find a way to reduce production/waste and inflation. We need to find a way to reduce the need for jobs because we cannot keep heading in this direction where everyone on the planet needs to work to live. We are killing ourselves and our planet. However, IMO it will be discussions on sharing resources properly and (tax dollars and the like) that will pave the way to finding new ways to do things that in the end achieve the means we seek.
So, how do we share that 2.3 billion effectively and/or how can we reduce it.
Since we set it aside anyway...to share it equally in some way does reduce the pressure for more jobs and more taxes.
It's called infrastructure. Roads, telecomm, energy, rail, ports, drinking water, waste water, waste disposal, are being invested in heavily using P3 partnerships and the ActionPlan which is foreign investment based on pre-paid resource term leases.
http://projects.pppcouncil.ca/ccppp...oject?pageid=3d067bedfe2f4677470dd6ccf64d05ed
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Oops...to many zeros in my math. It would be 2300 per person man, woman child. Sorry that I didn't catch that earlier. It's early here. So if we do discuss this we need to start again. Still, at 2300 per person in a household of 2 parents and 1 child you have a base line income of 9900 per year. That almost replaces a second income...
In terms of a single person household though it wouldn't work....that needs some thought.
I didn't think that part of that 2.3 billion represented that type of infrastructure. In the article it mentions that is is to fund the poor. I am not sure of the articles accuracy...hopefully it was better than mine giggle.
Realizing that my math was off the question that comes to my mind is this. If we took the tax collected off of that 2300 per person, pooled it (at least a portion of it) and re disbursed it to single person households and/or the poor, if there would be enough money to accomplish that.
So, 2.3 billion would generate how much in HST? I hate math but here goes something...$34,500,000. So how many poor households and/or single person households are there? That will take some research.
So while it isn't as pretty as it looked before I corrected my math there is still merit to considering a different way to spend that money.
In terms of a single person household though it wouldn't work....that needs some thought.
I didn't think that part of that 2.3 billion represented that type of infrastructure. In the article it mentions that is is to fund the poor. I am not sure of the articles accuracy...hopefully it was better than mine giggle.
Realizing that my math was off the question that comes to my mind is this. If we took the tax collected off of that 2300 per person, pooled it (at least a portion of it) and re disbursed it to single person households and/or the poor, if there would be enough money to accomplish that.
So, 2.3 billion would generate how much in HST? I hate math but here goes something...$34,500,000. So how many poor households and/or single person households are there? That will take some research.
So while it isn't as pretty as it looked before I corrected my math there is still merit to considering a different way to spend that money.