Editor: So far, I get the impression they don’t want us to understand too much about the HST.
Allowing the federal government to collect our B.C. sales tax with their GST is troublesome.
Why are the feds so willing and anxious to bribe us with $1.6 billion of our federal tax dollars so they can collect our provincial sales taxes? Is it because it gives them more control over the provinces? What’s in it for the feds?
Do you think Quebec would ever allow or trust the feds to take possession of their provincial sales taxes? Not a chance. How is this good for the Western provinces?
Is it a sellout of our provincial autonomy and sovereignty, the little that remains? Could this minimize our clout to negotiate with Ottawa when we have already surrendered and signed over our complete income and sales tax collection authority?
Have our BC Liberals considered the expression ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,’ or ‘possession is 9/10ths of the law.’
To add insult to injury, now our rookie Premier Christy Clark and her cabinet are wasting another $5 million sell job on us, using our own hard-earned tax dollars on expensive ads, as seen during prime time TV hockey playoffs.
Where is the big administrative efficiency and cost savings in it for B.C.?
I understand it is good for businesses and easier to remit and collect one tax instead of two, and agree with the efficiency aspect of one tax.
Now the Liberals have resorted to playing head games with us in the twisted psycho-babble way they are phrasing the referendum question. The people are stupid and we can trick them to vote ‘No,’ which actually is a vote for the HST.
Yes means No and No means Yes. Is there no shame?
On May 27, I had a phone call from Campaign Research.ca, a polling company in Ontario, asking how I will vote. Unprepared at the sudden convoluted question, I replied ‘no’ which actually meant ‘yes.’ Even the pollster’s employee was confused. Since the question is inside out and backwards, the results of the poll are worthless, indecipherable and another incompetent waste of our tax dollars.
Then they play more manipulation games with the corporate and small business income taxes.
It’s become a gong show of mismanagement, doubt, confusion and loss of credibility.
Why can’t they just keep it simple and forthright?
What’s wrong with this HST idea that I have heard so many times:
r Exempt basically the same items as the previous PST did, plus a few improvements to benefit consumers; and
r Have the provincial government collect both taxes, Then we will manage our own tax dollars from B.C. and collect the GST for the feds. They enforce their GST aspect, and we enforce B.C.’s sales tax, unless other arrangements are made.
Clark already appears to be making big deficit blunderer Gordon Campbell look good. And now she is playing more games with the carbon tax in attempts to extend it to other uses. HST= Hasty Stupid Tax. Grrrrrr.
I can’t believe these people are in charge of our future, and they want to be re-elected? Then we have the socialist NDP salivating for power to replace them. God help us!
Maybe it is time for a fiscally Conservative coalition government in B.C.
Roland Seguin,
Langley