The federal Conservative government will forgo a surplus this year and instead borrow money to pay for income-splitting and other new tax measures, according to its own fall economic update.
In the last two months, the Conservatives announced more than $3 billion in tax changes for this year, including an expensive income-splitting scheme. If they had followed the plan laid out by the late Jim Flaherty, the federal budget would have a small surplus this year instead of a $3 billion deficit.
Earlier this year, Mr. Flaherty called on the Conservatives to abandon their income-splitting scheme, saying “I think income-splitting needs a long, hard analytical look . . . to see who it affects and to what degree, because I’m not sure that overall, it benefits our society.”
He was right. The Conservatives’ new income-splitting scheme (which they call “the Family Tax Cut”) won’t give a dime to more than 85 per cent of Canadian households. But it will cost Canadians $2.4 billion this year alone.
We don’t think it’s fair to ask middle class families to pay to give families like the prime minister’s a $2,000 tax break. .
The economic update also showed that the growth rate for the Canadian economy will slow down each and every year between 2015 and 2019 – and that the recent Conservative tax measures will do nothing to turn it around. That’s not good enough.
Scott Brison, MP
Liberal Finance Critic