Regional council kicked off the new year with budget talks this week. Councillors heard from Jane Fraser, HRM’s chief financial officer, about how the dollar bills the municipality has, earns, spends and loans are all connected—and a new tax rate. Fraser explained what allows HRM to make money moves: The operating budget (revenues minus expenses—keeping […]
taxes
Posted inNews + Opinion
There’s nothing sexy or simple about commercial taxes
Like most things happening at City Hall lately, commercial tax changes have been a long time in the making. What started as a 2015 request—to look at concerns from small businesses in the central business district and main street and commercial corridors—came to the committee of the whole this week. It left with an amendment […]
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Customers of the state
We’re used to being thought of as customers—that the money we spend comes with certain entitlements, and that we should wield influence over those we spend it with. In the sense of expenditures on regular goods and services, this is largely true—justly or unjustly. Those of us who’ve worked in a service profession have no […]
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Council split on budget approval
It’s a bit of a bad news story if you ask Tim Outhit. Council approved HRM’s billion-dollar 2018-19 budget on Tuesday after some three hours of debate, with Outhit and fellow councillor Shawn Cleary being the only two votes against. The financial plan increases the average tax bill in Halifax by 1.975 percent—about $37 per single-family […]
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A second opinion on tax reforms
Breaking from the dominant position of their colleagues, this week over 300 doctors across the country sent a letter to finance minister Bill Morneau voicing support for proposed tax changes that will eliminate several money-saving mechanisms used by many Canadian physicians. Monika Dutt, a family physician in Cape Breton, is one of the signatories. Dutt […]
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Taxes are just another “culture shock” to living in Canada
The white wall in my room is always full of coloured sticky notes. Lots of them have new words I have learned in English, and some are notes to self: Do and do not. In the middle of last March, a new red sticky note has joined the others on the wall, it says: “income […]
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What’s the best way to file your taxes?
Mimi Cahill says she knew “absolutely nothing” when she first started filing taxes. But who can blame her? “How to do taxes” usually isn’t a high school course. She was only 15. “The people I babysat for actually put it in their taxes to get a credit for me, because they were paying me so […]
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Alternative Budget calls for assault on poverty
CCPA Alternative Budget calls for assault on poverty, tax hikes for the rich.
Posted inNews + Opinion
N.S. economic forecast predicts higher unemployment
Graham Steele NDP finance minister, Graham Steele says more people will be unemployed in Nova Scotia in the coming year than originally forecast. In his September budget, Steele predicted the provincial unemployment rate would average eight percent in 2009/10, but in his budget update released today, the finance minister revised that figure upward to 9.1 […]
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Objector accounts pay for peace
American war vets from Iraq and Afghanistan were testifying before the Congressional Progressive Caucus last month when Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, wondered how the US military dehumanizes the “enemy,” making it easier for soldiers to kill. Kristofer Goldsmith, a former US Army sergeant who fought in Iraq, replied that in basic training, recruits […]