02-11-2021, 12:25 PM
(02-11-2021, 11:49 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:(02-11-2021, 10:38 AM)westwardloo Wrote: I wouldn't mind the idea municipalities over a certain population being able to increase sales tax to pay for local investments in infrastructure. Unfortunately it would pretty much guarantee referendums on the subject which would result in no sales tax increase. I lived in Vancouver when we had a referendum on a 1% sale tax increase to pay for a new (skytrain) subway, a couple lrt lines and a couple brt lines. I think it would have cost the average person $50-100 a year. Ultimately the anti tax groups are very good at convincing the public that taxes are bad. Pretty much delayed transit expansion in Vancouver by 5 years. Basically ever city in the USA that is undergoing a massive transit expansion implemented a sales tax increase. examples include Seattle, Portland, Denver and Los Angeles.
This is what I mean. It’s not a good idea to let individual municipalities impose sales taxes. It would mean that in effect each municipality would be a separate sales tax jurisdiction, which would be insanely complicated and lead to weird effects at municipal borders. My idea in effect gives every municipality the same sales tax rate, administered as part of the HST. No increase in administration expense, except for a trivial amount associated with sending the money to the municipalities (and in particular, no difference for businesses).
Why a sales tax though? Why doesn't the province just give municipalities a set funding according to some formula, and the province can fund that with whatever.
This is more flexible than tying it to a sales tax, and we can set the formula to achieve whatever ends we wish to achieve.