cookieOptions = {msg};

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Rob gets political

Well, the old country has a budget agreement, for the moment, and the new country is in the middle of an election. So I have a question for Mr Harper, leader of the incumbent Conservative party. Actually, for all the fiscal conservatives who want me to believe that cutting corporate taxes is for the purpose of creating jobs.

Dear Mr Harper,

If corporate tax cuts (to the largest and most profitable corporations, many of which benefited from public bail-outs and which already enjoy very low tax rates) is meant to 'trickle down' and create jobs, why not tie the corporate tax rate(s) or engineer a corporate tax credit tied directly to job creation.

For instance, how about for every 1% (or something) increase in full time equivalent jobs (regardless of level or pay scale) they add and keep for at least 8 months of the tax year, they can have a 0.5% (or something) credit on their tax bill. This will compensate all and only those companies that actually create jobs, and stimulate them to increase the number of employees at the lowest, (entry-level, and presumably the most attractive to the corporate bosses) pay rates. This way, adding 50 employees at $40,000/year will gain them a much better tax break than hiring four executives at $500,000/year. And presumably the tax break makes up more than the difference in their additional benefits (and don't try to tell me that the four getting $500,000 don't get much better benefits than the 50 at $40,000 combined).

As it is, the plan is to reward the greedy and allow them to hoard their money, to the detriment of potential employees and the public tax coffers.

I'm not saying my plan doesn't need some serious number crunchers to make it work, but if the idea is to create jobs, how about actually creating the jobs, instead of giving more money to the rich and hope they create jobs?