Re. Joe McLaughlin’s column Jan. 26, 2013, with regard to a sales tax for Albertans.
I am not sure we would all welcome a sales tax as a government-imposed revenue source.
Like the City of Red Deer, they dither over the budget every year and set the new tax rate of four or five per cent, but in reality need seven per cent. So how do they make up the difference? Send all police forces out there to enforce traffic infractions, bylaws officers to search out violators of all city bylaws, and impose heavier fees and fee add ons wherever they can charge fees.
Then we read in the Advocate how photo radar collected $2 million in fines. But we never read about the lucrative amounts that other fines have brought in or the millions of dollars in fees paid to the city each year.
We are supposed to be losing something in the range of $6 billion in oil and gas revenue to the province next year? The province is complaining that we don’t have the pipelines to transport oil and gas products to markets, that our oil price has fallen on the world market.
It has fallen only because those who are in control of selling the oil are willing to take a lower price for it, as opposed to the world price or West Texas price.
As for transporting the oil? Well, we have plenty of rail lines that run to every coastal port. If we can’t build pipelines, then use rail lines. Easy solution.
The next question is why are we so bent on selling our crude oil at giveaway prices when this government should be advertising to attract secondary industry here to refine our crude and then sell the finished product on the world markets. It’s like our Nova plant out here that makes trainloads of polyethylene pellets and ships them all over North America to make finished products. Why not have industry located here to make those finished products? All this would boost our economy and employ thousands more people in Alberta.
You talk about a sales tax? Well, with some futuristic thinking and planning on the government’s part, and offering to locate industries here with relaxed municipal planning, instead of having to shell out millions of dollars to municipal governments before they can turn a wheel, and offering those industries some tax incentives for three to five years to attract industries to locate here might help.
Unless we start offering some incentive for business and industry to come here, we will have to accept selling our oil and mining products at discount prices and ship them off to other countries to make the finished product and then sell them back to us as consumers at highly inflated prices.
Clever. Very clever indeed.
That is why we can look no further down the road than how the government can strip the people yet again with another imposed tax to fund our social programs.
I notice how the editors always have a social answer for every problem. It’s nice that they work for the daily paper because if they had to make it on their own they would likely be bankrupt in no time.
Carmen Wallace
Red Deer