Editor:
On Feb. 10, The Aldergrove Star printed the column on the PST/HST written by Gregory Thomas, which is being circulated by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). This is one more effort by corporate owners and their high-paid executives to shift taxation from themselves to the general public; beginning with the GST and continuing with the HST. Sales taxes are not a problem for capital purchases which, like all corporate purchases, are tax deductible so they are not a discouragement to do business in B.C. or Canada.
Sales taxes are sneaky - they add just a "little bit" to almost everything that everyone buys (so we can afford it, right?). All sales taxes are a political move initiated by Big Business and its supporters,like the CTF, who do not constitute more than 5% of the population or jobs.
We have heard too often the ‘trickle-down’ slogans, like “more jobs and higher wages”. If there were genuine benefits for all of B.C., why did Gordon Campbell not make this tax-change the heart of every one of his election campaigns? Instead, he claims he thought of this two days after the last election (huh?) – he must have thought B.C. voters were stupid, just like Brian Mulroney when he thought he could slip in the GST. Both got a sharp wake-up call from the voters when they were permanently booted out of office.
Yes, the PST was bad for most B.C. citizens but the HST is even worse, as it is really a gigantic tax gift to the larger corporations, who fund the BC Liberals, by the general B.C. public under the guise that "investors" need more incentives to provide capital. The wealthy need tough tax pressure to get them to invest in the real economy instead of speculating in the stock markets of the world.
The HST tax-transfer has to be resisted on the grounds of fairness. This is the same argument for graduated income tax – those who can afford to pay the most tax are taxed at the highest rate.
Any form of ‘flat-tax’ (like any sales tax) is grossly unfair to the vast majority of B.C. citizens who have difficulty surviving in today’s economy.
Dr. H. Spencer, Aldergrove