Alberta Budget 2015

[Thorin]

Oil prices have gone way down, so royalties as a percentage of oil prices have gone way down.  And so the Alberta government suddenly has way less money to spend.  What's their answer?  Cut a little bit of spending (14.7bill last year, down to 14.4bill this year, for a 0.3bill reduction, or a 2.05% reduction).  And then make people pay more.

So what are we paying more?

Health Care Levy

Well, we have to pay a health care levy now.  Since we're (mostly) all programmers here, this is the formula:

income over 50k times 5%, max $200, plus
income over 70k times 5%, max $200, plus
income over 90k times 15%, max $200, plus
income over 110k times 15%, max $200, plus
income over 130k times 25%, max $200

or as Excel would show it:

min(max(income-50000,0)*5%,200)+min(max(income-70000,0)*5%,200)+min(max(income-90000,0)*15%,200)+min(max(income-110000,0)*15%,200)+min(max(income-130000,0)*25%,200)

They could've just as easily said income minus 50k times 1%, max $1000 ( in Excel: min(max(income-50000,0)*1%,1000) ).  That would've been so much simpler to calculate.

Thorin's family will probably pay $600 more because of this

Fuel Tax

$0.04 added to every liter of fuel sold.  How much you wanna bet the price at the pump goes up six cents instead of four, just like how the price at the pump went down four cents when the wholesale price went down five cents several times in the past year?  I'm not that upset over this one, tax on gas was much lower in Alberta than other provinces.  But I'm sure the gas station owners will gouge us and blame the higher taxes.

Thorin's family will probably pay $160 more because of this

Tobacco Tax

This one won't affect me, but I like how they say they plan to make tobacco more expensive so that people won't buy it, but then plan an increase in revenue because people will keep buying it.

Education Property Tax

This could turn into a large bill, but will probably be a couple hundred bucks for those that own a house or condo.

Charitable Donations Tax Credit

You won't be able to claim as large of a credit on charitable donations as before.  This'll be $82.50 less you can claim per $1,000 in donations.

Thorin's family will probably pay $80 more because of this

Tax On Insurance Premiums

Holy crap, I didn't even know there was a separate tax on insurance premiums.  Imagine you pay $1,000 per year for property insurance.  You used to pay $30 in taxes on top of that, now you'll pay $40 on top instead.

Thorin's family will probably pay $54 more because of this

Income Tax

We'll slowly move away from a flat tax to a tax-higher-income-at-a-higher-rate tax (what is called "progressive" taxation).  But honestly, it'll barely affect most of our tax bills.

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Thorin's family will probably pay $894 more in taxes thanks to the changes, about $75 per month, plus whatever ends up happening with the education property tax.

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Now guess what the Government of Alberta is doing to the corporations?  Nothing.  That's right, no increase in the corporate tax rate because they might make less profit than before (but they're still making profits!), while the workers will end up with less money to take home.  Seriously.  Ugh.

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One thing I think they did almost right, though, is increasing money going to lower-income families who still have at least one person working.

http://alberta.ca/budget-revenue-explained.cfm#revenuechanges

[Tom]

Yeah, I think their approach is totally flawed. Also reducing spending on heathcare and education. The two areas that are ALREADY super underfunded and falling apart. So stupid.

[Mr. Analog]

Hopefully we can elect a less spineless government in the near future, but I doubt it, jets and secret penthouses for everyone!

Also increasing tax on highly addictive substances SOUNDS like a good idea all it does is force the addicts to make trade offs, it does little to curb use

[Tom]

Hopefully we can elect a less spineless government in the near future, but I doubt it, jets and secret penthouses for everyone!

Also increasing tax on highly addictive substances SOUNDS like a good idea all it does is force the addicts to make trade offs, it does little to curb use

It also disproportionately affects lower income people.

[Darren Dirt]

Budget "solution" is to increase revenue.

This province does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Too many people screaming for their special project to keep a-running damn the costs... Too many politicians afraid to say "this is not a necessity" and put anybody out of work who relies on the inefficient administration of a program or service.

And yet straight-faced these same politicians mug for the cameras and say that public sector employees need to take a pay cut to bear some of the shared burden. BS! Look up the last 5 years history of public sector. Jobs cut, wages frozen. While cost of living skyrocketed.

These PR BS'ers misdirect with dishonest comparisons. Getting paid more than other provinces is apples vs oranges; getting paid way less than equivalent PRIVATE sector jobs is apples vs apples.

Ideally, acknowledging that many public sector employees are getting virtually the same take-home pay as they did 5 years would also be nice, but I ain't ever expecting *that*. Heck, some days I gaze deeply at my 200 hours of accumulated vacation (since it's tough to ever use up much of it since I and most of my colleagues are doing virtually double job duties of 5 years ago, after a bunch of fat was trimmed from government a few years ago... along with a virtual wage freeze for that same period -- but not bearing enough of the burden that we never caused eh? EFF EWE, PR BS'ers) and wonder why the %!$@ I am not just jumping into the private sector. But hey, they still haven't totally shredded my pension that I am forced to pay into 12k per year -- only remaining camel-straw, methinks.

[/rant]



And NDP radio ads tug at your heart strings and imply that all these can keep unchanged if only we increase the taxes on the productive segments of society (but not natural resources royalties, of course ... what?) No easy solutions to a problem if you aren't asking the right questions...


Whew, though, sure is nice the "cost of living" only increases like 2-3% per year (officially anyway) ... so that means I have imagined the cost of bread doubling in less than 10 years? Ditto for bread, etc.? And rent everywhere going up almost 50% in the past 5 years, that's just weird math I guess...

Remind me again (between tire-shredding pothole runs) why I'm still living in this awesome-climate low-rent excellent-public-transit filled-with-courteous-drivers metropolis? 

[Lazybones]

Have you compared this with trying to live in the lower-mainland in BC?

[Tom]

Budget "solution" is to increase revenue.

This province does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Too many people screaming for their special project to keep a-running damn the costs... Too many politicians afraid to say "this is not a necessity" and put anybody out of work who relies on the inefficient administration of a program or service.

Special projects like Education, and Healthcare? Both are getting cut fairly significantly.

[Darren Dirt]

Have you compared this with trying to live in the lower-mainland in BC?

@%&# is pretty @%&#ty all over the place. Thinking a log cabin out in the woods be lookin' mighty nice...

Budget "solution" is to increase revenue.

This province does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Too many people screaming for their special project to keep a-running damn the costs... Too many politicians afraid to say "this is not a necessity" and put anybody out of work who relies on the inefficient administration of a program or service.

Special projects like Education, and Healthcare? Both are getting cut fairly significantly.

Zoom in, not on the high level but on the details. Once a sub-program or special project comes into existence those who are in charge of administering it have a vested interest in not just maintaining its ongoing existence but indeed its growth. Just have to look at the increasing # of bills that are introduced and eventually passed in provinces and states and how rare it is for those to be even known about by most of the public let alone undone. Being vague on purpose, Alberta isn't special for this I guess is what I am saying. Just more visible on the radar right now due to budget conversation going on.

And idk what is really a "solution" to the ever-growing mess, tbh. [ EDIT: heck, maybe gotta be open to this sacrilege? ]

[Darren Dirt]

Grumpy Darren was grumpy.

Hungry Darren is no longer hungry.

Also, while I ate I watched this and pretty quickly felt better about my situation. At least I'm not on a weird Japanese game show like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFs8fzimWFE#t=5m22s (bonus points for watching in Chrome with "1.5x" speed!)

[Thorin]

I think one of the problems with this budget is that while individuals have to pay more tax, corporations don't, because as per the budget speech, if they make less profits, they might lay people off.  Notice the concern is not that they won't make profits, but just that they won't make as much profit if they have to pay more tax.

[Tom]

They are a bit naive as well in that. With the oil downturn, its going to affect everything so people will be laid off anyhow. Raising the taxes of corporations a little bit isn't going to change their behavior. It might if you raised it significantly, but i don't think anyone is asking for like a 10% flat increase. Really though, as long as there is money to be made, there will be companies, and there will be jobs.

[Thorin]

Profit is revenue minus expenses.  Wages are expenses, as are taxes.  The companies alluded to in the budget are making profits, therefore they've already paid for all their workers.  If they pay more in taxes but are still profitable, it has zero effect on whether there's money for the workers.  All it affects is income for the owners (individuals for small companies, shareholders for large companies).  Alberta's corporate tax rates already have extra buffers for small companies, so really, a corporate tax increase would only affect the shareholders of large companies, aka people who don't actually work for a living because they sit around all day investing in companies.

Raise the tax rate for businesses.

Of course, that means donations will go down or to other parties.

[Darren Dirt]

Raise the tax rate for businesses.

Of course, that means donations will go down or to other parties.

^ KEY. Anyone who watched House of Cards (especially Season 2 and/or 3) knows how always-front-and-centre that is in the minds of virtually every politician and their strategists, above virtually all other considerations (most of the time, if not all). "Representative" is such an accurate label/title -- but the question is, of whom?


There's a TV series from Amazon Prime with John Goodman ("Alpha House") where his character (a long-sitting Senator) says this very revealing quote:
"We spend 90 percent of our lives begging for money and whoring for votes, in order to hold on to jobs that are 90 percent begging for money and whoring for votes."

/MicDrop

[Tom]

Have to also consider that politicians live in an echo chamber, built and protected by lobyists. Many actually believe the tripe they parrot. so if a bunch of businesses say they will move or be harmed by a raise in taxes, they start to believe it, without even bothering to verify it.

[Darren Dirt]

Have to also consider that politicians live in an echo chamber, built and protected by lobyists. Many actually believe the tripe they parrot.

Or they just fire whoever in their inner circle is a voice of dissent #FrankUnderwoodSeason3GreatExample