FACT: Stephen Harper likes to portray himself as a great tax cutter. But before Canadians swallow that line, it’s instructive to check the record. As a brand new Prime Minister in the spring of 2006, what was Mr. Harper’s first tax policy decision? His Liberal predecessors had just handed him a strong and growing economy, a decade of balanced budgets and a $13-billion annual surplus. So what was his first move? Far from cutting taxes, he raised them. He hiked personal income taxes by retroactively cancelling a series of tax rate reductions put in place by the previous Liberal administration. A few months later – on Hallowe’en of 2006 – Mr. Harper spooked investment markets by imposing a toxic new Conservative tax on Income Trusts at 31.5%. He had promised never to do that, but he did it anyway. And in the process he instantly destroyed about $25-billion in the accumulated savings of some 2-million Canadians.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 21:16:36 +0000
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