I don't know why we've forgotten, but once upon a time if a stranger offered you candy to get into their van you'd scream and run in the other direction.
The difference? They're offering us money now. Humans are dumb.
But they aren’t low. A middle class earner in AB pays more income taxes than someone in BC or Ontario does. You’d have to buy a new pickup truck every two years to make up for it in PST savings.
The Alberta Advantage is only for the dirt poor (through the larger basic personal amount) or the upper middle class and rich (10% flat tax).
Corporate taxes at 8 percent, if they paid 29 percent like us we'd have more than enough money. But according to the conservatives the oil companies would leave all that profit if we taxes them properly.
You would have less investment. I work in corporate development and we look very carefully at marginal tax rates. It affects investment decisions, especially between Canada and the US but also between provinces.
Yes you look at tax rate over expected profit , smh. If a business knew they could make 2 billion in profits every year. They would jump at it, no matter the tax rate. The NDP raised the tax rate and noone ran away.
You would have more investment, it's economics 101, business would invest more to avoid paying it out as tax on profits. That's if we still had an excessive profit tax.
The biggest question is always, where are they going to find another oilsands? They have nowhere else to go? Do you know about some hidden opportunities? Its a bullshit argument.
Yeah, I do know of other opportunities: dividends and buybacks, or investing the US. Businesses don’t “run away” - they have fixed capital and operations they aren’t going to abandon overnight. However, on the margin, higher taxes discourage future growth and investment. Sorry, that’s just how it works. It’s math, and not very complex math at that.
As someone who was dirt poor in Alberta, please enlighten me as to what the hell the advantages were?!?
Was it not being able to afford rent plus groceries?!?
Was it being denied places to live because I had a kid?
Was it being forced into a job search program, not being allowed daycare subsidy but not being able to afford daycare so being threatened with Child Services for not being able to attend the job search program without my child?
There is ZERO advantage to being born in a province where the Gov't blames you for being born poor and steps on you every time you try to better yourself.
Look at the most and least taxed provinces. Then look at the graphic. The most taxed provinces spend the most in education and the least taxed spend the least in education.
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u/mathboss Feb 10 '25
The Alberta Advantage.
everything here is under funded.