As usual, Black Press columnist Tom Fletcher is off -base trying to defend the HST.
He only expected a one-per-cent reduction, not two per cent. Isn’t that a real treat? He then carries on about the $175 cheque per person. Pardon me, he calls that a “bonus” cheque. Please, $175 is two tanks of gasoline in the Lower Mainland with carbon tax figured in.
And then he obliquely compares our B.C. economic situation to Detroit’s, that has been thoroughly ravaged by the American Auto Industry. Nice try, but hardly comparable.
The facts of the matter are: we were lied to about the implementation of the HST in the last election campaign; as Carol Taylor said, “it transfers $1.8 billion tax payable from businesses to individuals and those who can least afford it”; and it is not revenue neutral, but raises a further $831 million per year or an additional 46 per cent from what was before collected.
If we do some simple math, dividing $2.631 billion by 4.4 million residents (every man, woman and child in B.C.), that comes to $600 per person – a lot of money.
Further, that extra $350 per family the government said it would cost for HST has two fatal flaws: it assumes businesses pass along the savings and it excludes large purchases, such as house renovations, real estate/accounting fees and private transactions of boats and vehicles.
The HST is a bad tax. It deserves to be extinguished or cancelled.
James Dartnell, Surrey