Investorial

Today’s last installment of the Canadian Election Watch analyzes the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) political promises about Canada’s financial prosperity. For those who joined us late, you can browse through previous articles about The Conservatives and The Liberals here and here respectively! You can also find out who I voted for and why at VinceChan.net! Enjoy and as always, your comments are welcomed!

Increasing the GST tax credit
This NDP declaration is in direct response to the other two party’s tactics to reduce personal taxation. The Conservatives are opting to reduce GST by 2% while The Liberals seek to increase the Personal Tax Exemption. My analysis is that the NDP has provided the weakest solution of the three. Given a choice, would you rather pay taxes now or pay taxes later? Let me rephrase! Would you rather the banks pay you interest now, or pay you interest later; 12 months later? The Conservatives are letting you keep more money up front. The Liberals are changing the way personal taxation is calculated while The NDP are saying that they will take your GST tax money, keep it and do with it what they want for 12 months, and return a mere small portion to you in the form of a tax credit later (when you apply for it!). I haven’t done the precise calculations, but the NDP policy also seems like the smallest impact of the three policies. The NDP always wants to hit up the angle that this will be a welcome bonus to lower-income families. Newsflash! Canada’s majority are middle-income families!

Increase taxes to higher income earners
The NDP would like to introduce new tax brackets to tax higher income earners. They are playing the “tax the wealthier, save the poorer” card again. I like the idea, and I also don’t like the idea. The wealthy population are the ones that can help out most by sharing their assets with the rest of Canada, but then what are the motivation for entrepreneurs to drive that much harder, only to be taxed further more? It doesn’t sound very democratic to “tax the well-to-do to save the poor”. In fact, it sounds downright communist! How it should be approached is to give the wealthy more incentives to donate to society, to help their fellow man. There should also be more focus to uplift the population below the poverty line. We live in a democratic capitalist society. Unfortunately, the NDP has always leaned towards socialist issues and socialist ideas. They have never impressed me much with the financial policies. This one is no exception.

Tax Capital Gains Similar to Employment Income
Wow, I think most readers of this Blog would deplore this attempt to generate tax revenue to fund the NDP’s idea of socialist programs. Mr. Layton, taxing the people who have the knowledge to invest, who have to will to help drive the economy is not the way to encourage a strong nation, a strong economy. The NDP would rather have everybody not poor, than to have people with the drive, the will to learn, the hard work ethic to make it happen thrive in society. What this promotes is an unmotivated society with no incentive to do better, be better and help build a prosperous society. How can asking holders of stock and real-estate investments to fork over more tax dollars on the investment gain encourage such investments? Where will the jobs come from? Where will the opportunities be? What will encourage local and foreign companies to invest in Canada? Mr. Layton, your party’s policies are idealistic in concept, but childlish in execution.

Does it sound like I’m a little bit hard on The NDP, compared to The Conservatives and The Liberals? Well, to be perfectly honest, I’ve always wondered why The NDP does not include the word Socialist in their party name? What are your thoughts? Please share them!

Related Posts:

• Canadian Election Watch: Tax Promises Part 2
• Canadian Election Watch: Tax Promises
• Income Trusts Avert Bad News … For Now
• Rocky Start For Income Trust Taxation In 2007