In the midst of a worsening affordability crisis, the NDP government has decided to implement new taxes — many that will have the greatest impact on people living right here in rural B.C.
The NDP have added or increased the number of taxes in Budget 2022, including raising the tax rate on home heating equipment using fossil fuels. This will include hot water tanks and natural gas furnaces like the ones most people in rural B.C. use to heat their homes.
While heat pumps are a great and sustainable home heating system for people living in places like the Lower Mainland, here in the Cariboo-Chilcotin it gets too cold for most types of heat pumps to be a viable option. This makes the fossil fuel tax all the more frustrating, as it means that most of the burden of this tax will end up getting shouldered by people in colder areas of the province.
However, an even more frustrating new tax measure is the NDP’s planned tax on used car sales.
The used car tax has the potential to add hundreds of dollars in cost to private vehicles sales because if the average wholesale value of the car is greater than the designated purchase price, the government will use the higher of those two values to calculate the tax owed. It’s almost as if the government is punishing people for finding a good deal on a car.
However, the worst part about this tax is not just that it will increase costs during an affordability crisis, but that the government knows it will most impact those who can’t afford it.
In the NDP’s own budget document it says, “individuals involved in private vehicle transactions are more likely to be low-to-medium income, living in a rural area…”
The government knows full well, and has identified in their budget for all to see, that this tax will affect people with lower incomes, as well as those living in rural areas, and yet has chosen to go ahead and implement it anyway. So much for their promise of “making life more affordable.”
More than 57 per cent of British Columbians report they can’t keep up with the cost of living under this NDP government. Whether it’s housing, groceries or gas prices, with each passing day it is getting more expensive to live one’s daily life, and instead of taking steps to make things more affordable, this government has chosen to do the opposite.
Time and time again, the NDP have shown that they don’t actually care about following through on their promises, and it’s everyday British Columbians that end up paying the price.
newsroom@100milefreepress.net
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