Alberta budget delivers tax increases for 1st time in years

At least started on getting rid of that stupid flat tax, but they certainly could have gone further in that regard. Charging the same tax rate for somebody making 20k as for 99k is just obscene.

And kudos on the medicare fee - the more you earn the more you pay. Like to see BC adopt that.

Charging the same amount would be obscene. The same rate isn't so bad, especially considering how much of that 20k would effectively be tax free due to the personal exemption. Not to mention the person earning 20k probably qualifies for a lot of subsidies that the 99k guy doesn't.

Those amounts are net income.

And, why did they walk away from the wonderful flat tax - because they need mo money, and the higher earners have it. Just join the rest of the civilized world already. In BC the person earning 20k net pays 5%, those netting 99k pay 12%. Seems a lot fairer to me.

I think you're confused about net and gross, but it is possible that I'm just confused about what you're trying to say.

Either way, moving from a flat tax to a progressive one is probably a good thing, I agree with you there. But I really don't have a problem with setting the bracket at 100k. It has to be set somewhere and unless you want 8 different brackets there will always be wide variation between the top and bottom of a particular bracket. 100k is a nice round number.

ANd as soon as I make 100k I'll start noticing just how attractive a number 110k is, no doubt.

Net income is after you've taken off all your deductions, it's the amount you pay taxes on. It's what people forget when they talk about taxes - it's net income that's relevant.

The brackets are 100k and 250k. Nothing wrong at all with 8 brackets or more - it makes the system more progressive without big jumps. Makes the transition to the next bracket less painful while also pulling more money out of the high earners. We could have a 100 brackets - we have computers for that sort of thing now, no problem at all to calculate. I certainly think our federal and BC's sytems could do with more brackets - 8 sounds like a nice number.

The other problem is moving up just .5% at 100k - why bother. You want .5% increments, bring in those multitudinous tax brackets.

BC already has that. If you earn enough not to starve to death or live in a cardboard box, you'll soon pay $75 a month.

That's the problem. In Alta, you only start paying at 50k. And they are graduated from 200 to 1000 a year.

You think people under 50k should be paying health care premiums? I thought you were all about helping the poor?

No. I was talking about BC. (I dunno, I think I'm being clear and people misread what I write - it should be obvious that I was saying the problem in BC, as Herbie said, is that the cutoff for paying full premiums is only around 30k) Basically a better idea is just to raise income taxes and forget about having a separate system that collects another tax. Inefficient.

Now that I'm not working full time I'm not earning 50k/year and I would still support an 'abuser pay' tax. If the attending healthcare professional deemed the visit to be unnecessary then a cash payment would be due prior to service. That might encourage most people to pick up the phone and call 'Health Link' first. If health link felt a visit to Dr or hospital was in order then they could give you an 'admittance #'

It hasn't even been 2 mos since I quit smoking & already they have had to raise the price of a carton of smokes by 5 bucks to make up for the shortfall!

I didn't take my empties back, and they raised booze taxes!

I didn't take my empties back, and they raised booze taxes!

WTF kind of nonsense is that? Would you have people pay at restaurants and grocery stores according to how much they earn? Then why pay different rates for the same healthcare?

Move to Venezuela and see your bullshit Utopia writ large. Venezuela is proof that even if you live in a country that's drowning in oil socialism can still make you poor.