Balanced budgets and lower taxes

Driving forward, Today's BC Liberals will:

• Eliminate our operating debt by 2021 - the first time that has occurred since the mid-1970's.
• Commit to another four balanced budgets
• Protect B.C.'s AAA credit rating
• Cut middle class taxes by $1 billion by phasing out MSP, starting with reducing premiums by half for families and individuals with family net income of up to $120,000 per year.
• Freeze all personal income taxes for the next four years.
• Cut the small business tax rate to 2% - the second lowest in Canada.
• Phase out PST on electricity for all businesses.
• Encourage charitable giving with a substantial increase in the value of the tax credit for charitable donations to a maximum value of $500 on the first $1,100 of donations

A responsible fiscal plan that works for you

We'll restore the tax on BC's highest income earners and increase the Corporate Income Tax rate by one point, putting BC's rate on par with Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. We'll also collect taxes from the property speculators who are profiting off their interference in Vancouver's housing market.

At the same time we will redirect BC Liberal waste and partisan government spending to programs that matter, like healthcare and education. We'll generate new revenue as we build new schools, roads, hospitals, housing and transit and grow our economy.

Plus we'll eliminate Christy Clark's LNG Fantasy Fund that you paid for with fee hikes and use the money to help eliminate tolls.

By making different choices, and getting our priorities right, we will make life more affordable, improve the services you count on and help create good jobs and a sustainable economy.

We'll do it while working hard to balance the budget each and every year, especially as our economy grows.

Make Taxes Lower and Easier to Understand

Because we don't pay directly for services offered by government, politicians come up with incomprehensible formulas to make us think that someone else (the rich, corporations) will pay more. But there is no free lunch and funds must come from somewhere. By trying to hide costs, politicians just add costs, complicate our lives and create dissension among us over conflicting meanings of "fairness". Taxation is compulsion and libertarians seek to minimize compulsion. Wherever possible, government services should be financed by fees paid by willing customers. In a transition period, we seek taxes which are as simple to understand as possible (so government can't hide the cost of their programs) and ones which cause the least damage to our economy.

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Personal income tax: Remove all tax credits and exemptions and replace them with a lower overall tax rate. Make filing simple by using a BC Income Tax form that fits on a postcard.

Business and Sales taxes: Encourage business growth and job creation by replacing the complex and burdensome PST and corporate income tax with a simple and low tax on business revenue.

Carbon tax: Repeal it. Fuel prices are already too high, with nearly half the cost made up by various taxes.

Budget and Taxes

Make the budget completely public down to the last tax dollar so that every taxpayer can see exactly where every dollar is being spent.

Require all lower levels of government to make their budgets, all of their contracts and all of their statistics public. This will include municipal governments, Metro Vancouver, Translink, all crown corporations including ICBC and BC Hydro, and all Independent First Nation Governments operating in BC

Stop borrowing money to run government

BC must get back to truly balanced budgets, including both operational and capital expenses. We would pay off existing debt like a mortgage and introduce mandatory balanced budgets. NO Carbon Tax! The carbon tax is a waste of taxpayers money and does nothing for the environment.

Budget and Taxes

Our party has released a fully costed whole-of-government budget reconciliation which will deliver a balanced budget over the next 4 years.

This is a highly effective, efficient and fiscally responsible policy program which focuses on delivering affordable housing, significant reductions in drug addiction, abolition of MSP premiums and road tolls for private citizens, reduced wait times for medical patients, cheaper gas & trans Canada air fares, elimination of child care wait times and earthquake protection for all students, workers and families.

It is also a full 4 year full-term program of Government rather than the 3 year limited budget released by the BC Liberals during this election campaign.

The budget reconciliation is based on using the BC Government’s full Budget papers as released on February 21st 2017 as a baseline and is a whole-of-government cash-flow budget based on net impacted areas of government.

See our website for a copy of our balanced budget as well as a full description of all of the policy initiatives contained in the budget