Via Al we learn that the CBC has reported:
Last November, before calling the election, the Liberals cut personal income taxes – a one per cent reduction to the lowest tax bracket, from 16 to 15 per cent, and an increase of $500 to the basic personal exemption
I thought this was a little strange on the part of the Conservatives but figured it was just part of a larger economic and taxation package. However, in this morning’s Financial Post I find out:
By the time Mr. Martin gets to the Canadian Club tomorrow, his attack on the Tory spending plan might be a little stale. Other Liberal claims about the Tory fiscal plan have been showing up in the media. The spin cycle on taxes began last week on CBC Television’s The National, where Neil MacDonald paraded Liberal spin as a Reality Check. The Conservative tax plan, said Mr. MacDonald, would “actually raise personal income taxes.”
Let us now reality check that Reality Check.
Here’s the story as told by Mr. Macdonald. Last Nov. 14, days before the Liberal government fell, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale unveiled a tax cut by lowering the lowest tax bracket by 1% to 15%. The Conservatives say they will raise the lowest rate back to 16%. Thus the Liberal tax cut, which “became law” last November, would be reversed by the Tories. Which means the Tories are “promising to raise income taxes.”
Over the past weekend, CanWest News Service repeated these ideas. The headline in The Edmonton Journal said, “Tories Would Drop Low-End Tax Cut.” The story reported that Stephen Harper said he would “repeal” a Liberal tax cut that had been “passed into law.”
So which is it? The lowering of the tax bracket is reported here:
An immediate drop of one percentage point in the lowest personal income tax rate, from 16 per cent to 15 per cent.
However, by immediately assumably the reporter meant “immediately after the mini-budget was passed”. Rummaging through the Parliament’s web site, we learn that Goodale introduced this plan as Bill C-80, An Act to implement certain income tax reductions:
1. (2) The tax payable under this Part by an individual on the individual’s taxable income or taxable income earned in Canada, as the case may be, (in this subdivision referred to as the “amount taxable”) for a taxation year is
(a) 15% of the amount taxable, if the amount taxable does not exceed $35,595;
So what’s the status of this bill? First Reading.
Also, the Liberal web site claims…
The same day, the Conservatives confirmed they’re going to raise your income taxes by reversing some of the Liberal government tax cuts already in place. [...] In exchange for saving $500 on a one-time purchase, Mr. Harper is proposing to raise your income taxes this year.
… and that the lowest bracket of your 2006 income is 15%.
There is one fly in the ointment of my argument above. Continuing with the Financial Post article:
First of all, the Liberal tax cut never became law. The plan made it to first reading in the House of Commons. Then the government fell. There is no law, and legally the Liberal tax cut doesn’t exist. What we have is a Liberal election promise (after 12 years in power) to cut a tax rate just as their train was heading over a cliff.
We can easily confirm this by going to Revenue Canada and looking at the payroll deduction tables:
The federal tax rate for the lowest tax bracket is reduced
retroactively from 16% to 15% for the 2005 and 2006
tax years.
You can also see this in the Personal Tables for 2005 and 2006.
Now, here’s the tricky part to assert. (According to the FP), they are not doing this on the basis of passed law but rather anticipation that bill C-80 will be passed when Parliament resumes. Thus, Revenue Canada is collecting taxes at 15% rate but if nothing else changes they will be asking for 16% at the end of the year. This is not a raise in taxes, this is just under collecting.
What’s really bizarre is that we’re all about to file taxes at the 15% rate, but as far as I can see, we really owe money at the 16% rate.
To recap:
- C-80 didn’t receive Royal Assent (it is officially ”Awaiting second reading” but since the 38th is over, it’s dead) and thus isn’t law
- The lowest income tax bracket remains at 16%
- Revenue Canada is collecting taxes in that bracket at 15%
- If the Conservatives win, we may owe extra money in 2006 to make up for collection shortfalls over the last few months
- The 15% tax rates claimed by the Liberals are “in place”. They’re just not law.
I’ll leave out judgment calls about who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, though there’s a certain admirable weaseliness to what the Liberals are claiming (and did) from a Machiavellian perspective.
