Last year, the government announced that it would shift to quarterly payments made through the federal benefit system instead of a refundable credit claimed on personal income-tax returns.
If it happened as originally scheduled, the move to the quarterly system would have ensured that all eligible households got payments before they incurred any substantial carbon charges for the year.
But the move has not happened as originally scheduled, with the Canada Revenue Agency saying it needed more time to develop the system of quarterly payments.
That leaves the question of why it took until December – eight months from the budget – to release the draft legislation.
But in economics, it has a much more technical meaning: does a certain spending or tax measure leave lower-income households or individuals relatively better off than higher-income households? In which case, it is progressive.
So in that sense, income taxes are progressive: higher earners don’t just pay more tax, they pay a higher rate of tax.
Transit-tax paradox: University of British Columbia economist Kevin Milligan points out in a Twitter thread an unexpected consequence of soaring fuel prices for TransLink, Greater Vancouver’s transit authority: declining revenue from a special transit tax at the pump.
And that lower volume of sales will decrease the revenue that TransLink gets from its dedicated fuel tax – just as it is faced with an increase in demand for its services.