Editor:
Re: Vehicle levies will fail to gain traction, Jan. 29 editorial.
Your editorial was good until you supported other taxes, such as the carbon tax, without question.
Carbon tax, like the HST, was imposed by ex-premier Gordon Campbell and approved by Premier Christy Clark. Its sole purpose is to provide general revenue for government. NDP Leader Adrian Dix says he intends to make it permanent and to increase the rate regularly as required.
This tax, we were told, was to increase the price of gas to reduce the desire to drive and be returned to the people by income-tax cuts.
It has failed on both points.
Only B.C. has a carbon tax. The concept is flawed, unfair and devious. It is a regressive tax, which means that it affects those in poverty and the working poor much more than the upper-middle class. Government employees simply had their mileage allowance increased.
The carbon tax is also retaxed by the HST. Read your gas and Hydro bill. If you get a token credit, the pre-paid HST is not returned.
Some monies are used to reduce provincial income tax. Income tax is a progressive tax that means those earning the most pay the most. Using a regressive carbon tax to reduce a progressive income tax is deceitful. It targets the poor and rewards the rest. Unreported is more than a billion dollars of the carbon tax given to favoured interests and vote-getting agendas. None having anything to do with cars.
Is it not stupid for a government to tax its own buildings and schools for heat and light, or BC Ferries for fuel, and then demand that school taxes and ferry rates be increased to cover the tax? Is it expected that low-incomers should turn down the heat and wear sweaters or use low-wattage light bulbs that affect vision to reduce the tax?
If reducing pollution were the goal, the government could just fine those who pollute, but the real purpose was to create a new tax to support a spendthrift government deep in debt that does not intend to reduce wasteful spending.
The carbon tax is just another tax with a motherhood name.
Get over the name and read the fine print. Taxpayers are being conned.
J. Edwards, Surrey