Monday, December 21, 2015

Yeah, like I'd turn over my tax refund to Queen's Park ...

... yet since the Mike Harris days, people in Ontario have actually had the option of donating some or all of their tax refund to help pay down the province's debt. How much has been raised so far in the last 19 years? $2.8 million. That's it. What is Ontario's debt? At the end of FY 2014, it was $288.1 billion. We're close to matching New York State, which is $300 billion or so in the hole.

Yet now, Ontario's deputy premier is suggesting that the people of this province seriously consider ticking that box at the bottom of page 4 to help the debt burden.

Are you serious? We're about to be hit with a 1.9% payroll tax for a pension plan most of us don't even want. It'd be a lot easier to get rid of corporate welfare, and work with the CRA to go after the black market (oh, excuse me, the underground economy). Heaven knows how much we lose just on that second one - if the feds are losing $80 billion a year nationally, that works out to about $13 billion in lost provincial revenues. You'd balance the budget right away! Better yet, listen to the province's auditor-general and get rid of the waste.

That purple box on the bottom of the return, they should just get rid of it. It hasn't worked.

Ontario needs to clean up its act. Just because they gave the Liberals a fourth term doesn't give it the right to go on a spending spree.

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