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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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What stood out to me in the article was the disingenuous quote from the Oil & Gas industry saying that tax breaks aren’t subsidies because they are part of the tax system.
Those familiar with the tax system and public finance will be aware that Finance Canada has published a list of Federal Tax Expenditures and their value for a long time. There’s even a distinct section for fossil fuels.
Tax subsidies are subsidies.
Man, that table is a nightmare to try and make sense of. I'm not an accountant, so it likely makes more sense to someone with experience in the field, but I can't even pull out an approximate number for how much it costs the government in reduced taxes from that table.
Still wild that we subsidize a sector so heavily, especially when its so harmful to the planet.
Not to mention so incredibly profitable already.
It's so bizarre when we could be taxing them and using the tax money to reduce our reliance on them. Though that should have started fifty years ago.
Ah, so that was part of the plan Peter Lougheed used as a platform to wrest control of Alberta from the Socreds 50 years ago, then? I know it was an impressive plan, and I worry his party has accomplished none of its goals since then, but while I know reducing tariffs on oil exports was in the plan, I'm not sure whether taxing them provincially was part of it.
Not sure about what was going on in Alberta that long ago but I recall they toyed with the idea of not being doormats for a bit before deciding they preferred to be stepped on.
That's the thing about allowing democracy to decide what is subsidized: Everyone votes for the way things currently are, so the biggest employers and most profitable firms keep getting bigger, while the genuine startups and experimental new things are screwed over because very few people currently make a living off of them.