The Truth About “Revenue Neutral” Carbon Taxes
September 18, 2008 · By Shane Edwards
The local rag out here in Surrey has come the closest I have seen of any newspaper to tell us the real story on carbon tax.
BC is the only province that has one, and the government claims it is revenue neutral. The Surrey Leader timidly crunches the numbers.
They use two case studies: the $40 000 a year single woman, and the $70 000 a year single income 4 person family.
The numbers for the single are crunched most thoroughly, and you get the sense that more often than not, the single will come out ahead in this carbon tax scenario. Fine.
But then look at the family. The paper doesn’t do nearly as thorough a job breaking this scenario down, because the numbers quickly get ugly. They barely break even, and only if you assume that they drive less than what is really a very low number for kms driven. Especially if those kids are in sports, or any extracurricular activity. And the number sinks still lower when you factor in that most families live in places heated by natural gas, which also has a carbon tax on it. The number of kms becomes even more unachievable if there is a dual income, which is more and more common.
When you look hard at the numbers, it is not even close. The carbon tax is nowhere near revenue neutral for families in BC.
Maybe we should change the name to the “Family Tax”.
Revenue is income, Shane. Taxes are only revenue for the government. Revenue-neutral tax therefore obviously refers to the government, not taxpayers. Taxes have absolutely no impact on a taxpayer’s revenue, so revenue-neutrality doesn’t even apply. Your claims make absolutely no sense. Complete strawman.