This week marks the first of what will be 10 in-person town halls over the next few months for the new Alberta Next panel. Read More
Why not hire thousands of teachers and doctors and nurses? Why do we need thousands of tax collectors to do a job that’s already being done?
Why not hire thousands of teachers and doctors and nurses? Why do we need thousands of tax collectors to do a job that’s already being done?
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This week marks the first of what will be 10 in-person town halls over the next few months for the new Alberta Next panel.
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It’s fair to wonder whether we’re simply mirroring and replicating what was done under the previous Fair Deal panel, although one key difference may be in what comes after the new panel’s work — the premier seems keen on this endeavour spawning numerous referendum questions.
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Hopefully, though, we won’t banish the Fair Deal panel completely from our memory. It did help put some bad ideas to rest.
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The premier appears to view this exercise as a means to advance certain issues in a way that the Fair Deal panel couldn’t or wouldn’t. That panel, for example, recommended creating both an Alberta pension plan and a provincial police force. Neither of those changes has happened, but the Alberta Next panel seems poised to take up the mantle.
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But there was a different conclusion on the question of a separate Alberta tax collection agency. The Fair Deal panel recommended “no changes to tax collection in Alberta,” noting that such a change “would create extra costs, duplicate collection efforts and significantly increase red tape.”
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As it stands now, the Canada Revenue Agency collects both federal and provincial taxes in Alberta — through a single tax form — and remits the provincial amount back to Alberta. That amount is based on what’s assessed, so the province doesn’t have to worry about chasing down uncollected taxes. This is an agreement that benefits Alberta very well.
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Quebec is the one province that has its own tax collection agency. The fact that Quebec does it, and the fact that Alberta “relies” on Ottawa for something, is enough to keep this idea alive.
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Last week, the premier posted a video that posed the question of whether Alberta should take over the collection of personal income taxes. The video did concede some of the drawbacks of the idea but put more emphasis on the supposed benefits. This aligns with the premier’s own previously expressed support for this idea.
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The startup costs of an Alberta revenue agency could run into the billions, and the annual operating cost would be several hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Yet, the premier’s video casts this as a potential benefit, namely the “thousands of good, high-paying jobs” it would create. Yes, ramping up government spending by billions of dollars and ballooning the public sector would create more jobs, but it’s disconcerting to hear an ostensibly conservative government advocating such an approach.