Income and real estate taxes help bump up British Columbia surplus
Bus pass clawback for disabled remains as provincial Finance Minister Mike de Jong releases province’s first-quarter budget update
The BC Liberal government got a tax windfall from the overheated Metro Vancouver real estate market and has plowed some of that money into what NDP critic Carole James calls the “imaginary fund.”
Finance Minister Mike de Jong’s first-quarter budget update Thursday included a C$400 million (US$304 million) deposit to the so-called Prosperity Fund, seven months after seeding it with C$100 million (US$76 million).
When it was announced in the 2013 pre-election throne speech, the fund was supposed generated strictly from proceeds of liquefied natural gas sales. The government claimed it could grow to be C$100 billion (US$76 billion) and help erase the provincial debt, but a global demand slump has delayed plans for a BC industry.
“It really is a slush fund for the government going into the election,” James said.
Jordan Bateman, BC Director of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, said a better use of the C$400 million deposit would have been reducing BC’s C$66.5 billion (US$50.6 billion) debt, which is C$21 billion (US$16 billion)worse since Christy Clark assumed the premiership in March 2011.
“That money should go directly on the debt, that reduces debt servicing costs and then that saves more money down the road,” Bateman said.
