Today, the Sun has a fairly good article by Joan Bryden under a ridiculous headline. You can find it here. Here's the jist of the story: in the past when parents receive scholarships to reduce the private school tuition of their children they also had to count that scholarship as income. So, despite also paying property taxes and provincial taxes, these parents also had to pay taxes on money which never actually passed through their wallet. The federal government decided to stop taxing these scholarships in this year's budget (just as they decided to stop taxing my university scholarships in last year's, though the subject of Mr. Flaherty buying me a motorcycle is for another post).
Now, the Liberals think this is unfair. Gerard Kennedy is calling it the subsidy of private schools or something like that. And Ted over at Cerberus, who in my mind is the best Liberal blogger, is also all over this. Is this really a battle the Liberals want to fight? They want to stand for taking more money from parents who want the best education for their kids and are willing to pay for it in addition to paying taxes for schools they don't use? Oh, did I forget to mention that Kennedy also informed us that this measure is meant to appeal to the party's "social conservative base"? What say the experts? I'll leave it to Alex Usher: ""If it's speaking to their base, it's speaking in semaphore with postage-sized flags."
I just don't understand some of the battles this party is trying to fight.
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7 comments:
its speaks to the greater malaise enveloping the liberals right now. they are whining about negative ads and opposing tax credits for education. rudderless.
Give me a break Adam. Maybe the Harper torys should pass a piece of legislation preventing the federal government from interfering in clear provincial jurisdiction like education so they can overturn their own tax credit...this is flaherty being flaherty and Gerard was bag on in his comments.
Yes, anonymous, I completely agree. The Liberals have never, ever, interfered in a "clear provincial jurisdiction like education." Don't look now, but stones and glass houses tend not to mix.
Well, I wasn't exactly all over this, having posted only once. The only real point is that using federal tax credits to help kids go to private school is hardly a "Tim Horton's" kind of thing to do.
But thanks for the compliment.
Adam: the only difference between the Conservatives and Liberals right now on that front is that one is suffering from malaise and trying to end 7 years of rudderlessness and the other is just rudderless.
If Cerberus is on it then by definition someone is all over it.
Or something is all over me!
;-)
Ted
This is a good article and gives good information. There is no sense to cut tax by that money which never passes the wallet. By the way education in private high schools should be free from the taxes.
http://www.teensprivateschools.com/schooltypes/High-Schools/index.html
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