|
Liberal Tax Plan Offers Immediate Benefits for Families |
|
|
|
Written by LPC
|
|
Sunday, 18 December 2005 |
Prime Minister Paul Martin and Finance Minister Ralph Goodale announced today that the Liberal tax-cut plan will begin providing real savings to Canadians across the country, beginning this year.
“The Liberal tax plan has been approved by Parliament and is now in place – delivering a retroactive personal income tax cut to middle and lower-income Canadians for the 2005 tax year,” said the Prime Minister while on a campaign stop in Regina.
Prime Minister Martin also confirmed that low-income seniors and families with children will be receiving payments in January – under the new Canada Energy Benefit – to help them deal with high energy costs.
“I believe that this package is the right approach. Reducing personal income taxes is the right long-term approach, but we must also be willing to help out Canada’s most in-need. That’s exactly what we have done,” said the Prime Minister.
The Liberal government is focusing on lowering personal income taxes to provide Canadians real choice and give them the freedom to set their own priorities.
We believe that cutting income taxes, not sales taxes, is the way to go – and so do the majority of Canadians. A Strategic Counsel poll published in the Globe and Mail on December 10 found that Canadians prefer income tax cuts to Stephen Harper’s proposed GST cut by a margin of 20 points.
“Canadians can use the money they save through the Liberal plan however they choose: to pay their rent or mortgage, save for their children’s education, or save for their own retirement,” said Minister Goodale.
The recent Economic and Fiscal Update proposed two measures that took effect retroactively on January 1, 2005. One was a $500 increase in the basic personal amount – the amount of income that all Canadians can earn without paying federal income tax and the other was a reduction of the lowest personal income tax rate to 15 per cent from 16 per cent.
These measures will provide individual taxpayers with immediate personal income tax relief of up to $325 this year.
The Liberal tax-cut plan will provide tangible benefits for Canadians and their families. A typical two-earner family with two children, earning $60,000 a year, would save $435 for 2005 and an additional $499 in 2006, for a total of $934. A typical single person earning $40,000 would save $320 for 2005 and an additional $359 in 2006, for a total of $679.
Once fully implemented, the Liberal government’s tax-cut plan will deliver more than $29 billion in personal tax cuts over the next five years. This builds on the $22 billion in taxes cut in the 2005 budget and the $100-billion tax package delivered in 2000 – the largest tax cut in Canadian history.
“This is a progressive approach to cutting taxes. I am particularly pleased that in 2005 more than half a million Canadians stopped paying income tax altogether as a result of this package,” said Minister Goodale.
Payments under the Canada Energy Benefit will be:
- $250 to families entitled to receive the National Child Benefit (NCB) supplement in January 2006;
- $125 to seniors entitled to receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) in January 2006; and
- $250 to senior couples, where both spouses are entitled to receive the GIS in January 2006.
|
