If you had a little extra bounce in your step on Tuesday, it may have been because June 7 marked Tax Freedom Day in British Columbia. That’s the day the Fraser Institute says the “average” family with an income of $105,000 has paid all of their federal, provincial, municipal and sales tax burdens for the year.
The Fraser Institute uses its annual report on Tax Freedom Day to bemoan taxes generally and the higher rate the top 20 per cent of earners pay specifically. Of course, for some of them, Tax Freedom Day could have been celebrated on Jan. 1. As revealed by the Panama Papers, hundreds of Canadians and Canadian companies set up firms in tax haven countries where they could stockpile cash away from the snooping eyes of the Canada Revenue Agency.
The not-so-between-the-lines message the Fraser Institute brings year after year is that we’d all be better off if the government would leave our hard-earned tax dollars alone and let the all-wise and benevolent free market provide the services society needs. Always absent in the Fraser Institute’s criticism is the concept of value for dollar.
We welcome this week the substantial provincial investment of our taxes in a new care home for seniors in the developing Lynn Creek area.
But even with this new facility, we’re still far short of what will be needed to ensure the coming glut of seniors requiring residential care can enjoy the quality of life we all agree they deserve in their golden years.
These are people who could not afford adequate care at the private sector’s rates.
The bottom line is, we get what we pay for – all year round.
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