The Employer Health Tax (EHT) was explained in further detail by the NDP but one of its biggest critics remains skeptical.
Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond is bullish on the issue as the new tax lacked clarity and guidelines for a long time.
“It’s a replacement tax. It’s confusing at best and it continues to be, what we saw yesterday was a relief for some organizations and that is important for smaller non-profits and I talked to many of them who are concerned.”
According to the government, public services will not be impacted by the EHT when it takes effect on January 1st.
This includes funding for colleges and teaching universities along with community and social service providers and health authorities.
Bond says while that might seem like a good start, a lot of other sectors will be feeling the pinch.
“We still have significant tax impacts on small businesses and a significant concern to me is that there are no changes to the expectations of municipalities across the province. This was a mess, to begin with, there was an attempt to fix it and there is still confusion and significant impact.”
“It is important to have a sound fiscal policy, this was announced with no guidelines in place and now we have some form of clarity and yet there are still organizations that are impacted and others where we do not know the bottom line.”
The province claims a transition to the EHT will result in $50 million dollars of yearly savings – something the local MLA highly disputes.
“I don’t know anyone can talk about savings when in fact, they are transferring a tax from the MSP premiums to small businesses to municipalities and let’s be clear this is a replacement tax and if municipalities are expected to pay the EHT there is one pocket that is going to come out of and it’s the taxpayers.”
According to the NDP, the elimination of MSP premiums and the introduction of the EHT is expected to result in a tax decrease of $800 million dollars per year.
EHT is expected to increase Prince George’s health costs from $667,358 to $1.371 million.