BC’s return to PST slammed in new survey

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A study of tax policy slams BC’s decision to return to the Provincial Sales Tax. The University of Calgary’s global tax competitiveness survey says Canada is slipping and becoming less attractive to investment.

Citing what they call “recent anti-competitive provincial tax policies,” authors Jack Mintz and Duanjie Chen say this includes, “most notably,” BC dropping the Harmonized Sales Tax and returning to the PST.

Anti-tax crusader Bill Vander Zalm feels we’re still better off. “It may not be a nice thing for big industry and big business. They’d love to get all that money back but it’s the people with the lunchbucket that pay the bill and we’ve got to worry about them now and again too.”

Vander Zalm never did have a lot of time for academics when he was premier, and he certainly doesn’t have much time for them now.

“They can do all the studies they want. They like doing studies, they like spending money at universities, unfortunately they should be spending it on education instead of all of these studies.”

It also mentions BC’s recent corporate income tax rate hike and a similar move in New Brunswick, which the authors say “can mean major repercussions for the economy and society as a whole.”