Federal Equalization Payments

[RavYak]

Originally Posted by HyperMOA

You pay less taxes per dollar earned but in the end you are paying even more taxes here than in SK or MB. As you are earning 30% more, you pay approximately 30% more. But agreed, it is good here. It’s why I moved here from SK.

Easy solution, make less money...

Regarding your comment about paying more tax.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/loc...7-report-shows

In total, Quebecers paid nearly $156 billion in taxes in 2017.

Of that, 32 per cent went to the federal government, 49 per cent went to the province and 10 per cent went to local governments. Another nine per cent was paid to the provincial pension plan.

So 0.49*156 billion = 76.4 billion in provincial taxes / 8.164 mil people = $9,358 per capita provincial tax.

https://www.alberta.ca/revenue.aspx

Revenue Sources 2018-19 Actual
Income and other Taxes 23,578

23.5 billion in provincial tax / 4.067 mil people = $5,778 per capita provincial tax.

On average Quebecers pay ~ $3,500 more in provincial tax than we do.

So we pay 6k more in federal tax, 3.5k less in provincial tax for only 2.5k more tax per year and we make 30k more per household (using 2015 data). I'll think I'll stick with the AB advantage and not worry about the little bit of extra tax I am paying.

[zabbo]

Originally Posted by DiabeticKripple

quebec has a whole bunch of shale gas, but they wont allow fracing to develop it.

Quebec also has vast mineral resources in many forms. Once again they refuse to develop them. After they have drained all they can from Canada, they will separate "officially", and no doubt instantly develop these riches. I have personally witnessed people from quebec insisting they they are not from Canada, they are from qeeeebec. This has happened on many occasions while vacationing in the Caribbean.

[HyperMOA]

Originally Posted by RavYak

Easy solution, make less money...

Regarding your comment about paying more tax.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/loc...7-report-shows



So 0.49*156 billion = 76.4 billion in provincial taxes / 8.164 mil people = $9,358 per capita provincial tax.

https://www.alberta.ca/revenue.aspx



23.5 billion in provincial tax / 4.067 mil people = $5,778 per capita provincial tax.

On average Quebecers pay ~ $3,500 more in provincial tax than we do.

So we pay 6k more in federal tax, 3.5k less in provincial tax for only 2.5k more tax per year and we make 30k more per household (using 2015 data). I'll think I'll stick with the AB advantage and not worry about the little bit of extra tax I am paying.

I think you misunderstood me. We are making the same point. In AB we have the lowest tax burden, however we contribute more in tax dollars, not percentage, than anyone else in Canada. This is because of the higher wages we earn here. So we pay a lower rate, but end up paying the most dollars. This doesn’t include our GST contributions either. AB leads the way in that category too. However, that can be debated as a “voluntary” tax of sorts. To a point. I mean we have to pay GST just to power our homes, we can’t avoid it However, if you don’t want to pay GST on a vehicle purchase, buy privately. (That’s getting a bit off topic)

I don’t want to earn less, I want to be taxed less, thus my residence for the last 19 years in AB. If I made the same T4 value in another province I would pay considerably more there than here.

[HyperMOA]

Originally Posted by zabbo

I have personally witnessed people from quebec insisting they they are not from Canada, they are from qeeeebec. This has happened on many occasions while vacationing in the Caribbean.

I was in a training course in the states and there was also a guy from QC there. He rubbed everyone the wrong way. Most of the guys were from “the south” a guy from New Jersey stated that I was more American than he was; then he asked why that other Canadian guy was so miserable. I explained to them, that he wasn’t a Canadian, he was a Quebecer. So it kinda goes both ways. I also told them that Canadians don’t come from Toronto either. They understood what I was saying. I think I described Toronto as the broadway of Canada.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by RavYak

So we pay 6k more in federal tax, 3.5k less in provincial tax for only 2.5k more tax per year and we make 30k more per household (using 2015 data). I'll think I'll stick with the AB advantage and not worry about the little bit of extra tax I am paying.

The difference is probably more narrow than that, we sometimes pay a lot more for individual services with the government. There’s a term for this that escapes me at the moment.

Anyway when you deduct the user fees that we pay from those tax “savings” it shifts things a bit.

[Red Bullets]

Originally Posted by zabbo

Quebec also has vast mineral resources in many forms. Once again they refuse to develop them. After they have drained all they can from Canada, they will separate "officially", and no doubt instantly develop these riches. I have personally witnessed people from quebec insisting they they are not from Canada, they are from qeeeebec. This has happened on many occasions while vacationing in the Caribbean.

A good example is just in 2017 Quebec and Ontario produced 133 tonnes of gold and Alberta, Sask, and Manitoba combined only produces 6.7 tonnes. In the past 10 years Ontario and Quebec have produced around 1000 tonnes. The west only produced maybe 75 during that same time. Where is the west's share?

What is really sick is that Canada has produced over 1000 tonnes of gold in the past 10 years and has no gold in reserves and the bank of Canada no longer holds gold in it's international portfolio.

[teberle]

Originally Posted by RavYak

"Transfer payments" as you are calling them are not related to the equalization payments Quebec etc receive. The "transfer payments" you are referencing are calculated by subtracting our federal funding from our federal taxation.

We pay more in federal tax because we make more income. We receive less federal funding because we have a smaller population and require less financial assistance from EI, OAS etc due to being better off.

In 2016 Alberta had a population of 4,067,175 paid 49 billion in federal taxes ($12,407 per capita) and received 27.2 billion in federal funding ($6,687 per capita) resulting in a net "transfer payment" of 21.8 billion.

In 2016 Quebec had a population of 8,164,361 paid 50 billion in federal taxes ($6,124 per capita) and received 66.4 billion in federal funding ($8,132 per capita). 9.5 billion of that funding came from equalization, if we subtract that from the 66.4 billion you get 56.9 billion ($6,969 per capita).

So what do we learn from this?

Alberta pays the same federal tax rates but we pay significantly more total tax per person because of our significantly higher incomes, resource income etc.

Alberta received only slightly less federal funding per capita compared to Quebec ($6,687 vs $6969) if you ignore funding from the equalization program. This funding is for healthcare, pension, oas etc.

The main difference is equalization. The entire equalization program only totals 19 billion and we aren't even the greatest net contributor (Ontario is because of their significantly larger population, yes they received ~ 1 billion but their portion of tax contributed ~7.5 billion). Our net contribution to the equalization program is only around 3.5 billion (less than $1,000 per capita).

We will never get out of equalization payments, they are simply a portion of federal taxes. As long as we continue to make more money we will pay more in taxes.

So the real question is, would you rather make less income so you pay less taxes and do not personally contribute to this equalization program? All you need to do is live on a below average Canadian income and you can sleep easy knowing the rest of Canada is helping support you. My guess is that you would rather make a larger income and throw the poor people a small portion instead.

This is what I was getting at. Thanks for articulating it much better than I would have.

[teberle]

Originally Posted by Positrac

Quebec announced a $4 billion surplus after getting $13 billion in equalization transfer payments from Alberta this year. Not sure where you are getting your numbers but since they probably better support your agenda than the truth you might as well stick with them...

Actually I really have nothing to say, opinion-wise, about equalization, either in principal or about the way it's implemented. I just think that if we're going to talk about it all, we should at least get the very most basic facts about it straight. Did you read the article the OP posted? Quebec received 11.7 billion in equalization in 2018-19, not 13 billion. And no, this money does not simply come 'from Alberta.' It's part of the federal budget and comes directly from the federal government, funded by federal taxes. In other words, regardless of which province you live in, whether it's Alberta, Quebec, Saskatchewan, PEI, or wherever, part of every dollar you pay in federal income tax, gst, etc., goes toward equalization. Therefore, the percentage of the equalization program that comes from Alberta taxpayers is equal to the total of 19 billion dollars multiplied by the portion of the federal budget that comes form Alberta, which in 2016 was 17%. That's approximately 3.2 billion.

[blackburbot]

[QUOTE=RavYak;4055472]"Transfer payments" as you are calling them are not related to the equalization payments Quebec etc receive. The "transfer payments" you are referencing are calculated by subtracting our federal funding from our federal taxation.

In 2016 Alberta had a population of 4,067,175 paid 49 billion in federal taxes ($12,407 per capita) and received 27.2 billion in federal funding ($6,687 per capita) resulting in a net "transfer payment" of 21.8 billion.

In 2016 Quebec had a population of 8,164,361 paid 50 billion in federal taxes ($6,124 per capita) and received 66.4 billion in federal funding ($8,132 per capita). 9.5 billion of that funding came from equalization, if we subtract that from the 66.4 billion you get 56.9 billion ($6,969 per capita).

So what do we learn from this?


I learnt Quebec has about 4 million useless people. Alberta paid 1billion less in taxes for 4 million less people. We are doing something wrong/right over here.

We are providing money to make them a welfare province and instead of wanting to help themselves, they are helping themselves on evryones' dime.

An older article but still holds true

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/pet...ollars-at-work

Article from hydro Quebec "bragging" about low power rates


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...WX99LVnqxwhwKO