Stephen Harper's Tax Plan Steals From the Poor to Give to the Rich

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, calls Harper's income splitting plan, Robin Hood in Reverse:

On March 28th, Mr. Harper announced his party’s latest election plank: the “Family Tax Cut”, or income splitting for couples with children. The program is supposed to “…make the income tax system fairer…” while recognizing that “…family budgets are stretched…” But an examination of the distributional impacts of the “Family Tax Cut” shows that it neither makes the tax system fairer nor helps stretched family incomes.

In fact, as with most income tax cuts and credits, the largest benefits go the richest Canadians. Those who actually have their budgets stretched get the least benefit while those that are doing just fine get the biggest breaks. With income inequality in Canada is already reaching record levels, there is certainly no need to provide additional benefits to the richest Canadians while leaving the poorest behind in the dust.

And as David Quist reminds us in the Ottawa citizen, the plan targets married couples, providing nothing for single parents, most of whom are women. Typical Republican/Tea Party logic, where they get to define what constitutes a "family".

And while telling us he will be cutting spending (we know not on his people), he refuses to tell us where, so expect the country's disadvantaged to be expected to suffer further.

However, the biggest scam of the Conservative 'low tax' plan, is their suggestion that giving the wealthiest corporations more tax cuts, will create jobs and that the benefits will trickle down. A misguided and fraudulent assumption known as 'Voodoo economics'.

There is no trickling down only an upward gusher, where those who benefit the most from what this country has to offer, pay the least for it. 'The Conservative’s case for corporate tax cuts is increasingly coming under duress after new analyses suggest companies have neither created jobs or invested with their windfall. The Tories are arguing lower corporate tax rates will create jobs and business investment, blasting both the Liberals and NDP for seeking to tax firms more.'

They are big costs with no job creation.

We are a country with one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world, but one of the highest child poverty rates. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

There is now a petition demanding that this nonsense is stopped before it destroys us all.

Because while claiming to stand up for Canada, Stephen Harper and his cohorts are selling us out to corporations. Lock, stock and barrel.

On May 2, the choice is clear. Corporations or people?