The Alberta Teachers’ Association

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Thank you ATA president Greg Jeffery for joining us in celebrating Catholic Education Week and National Catholic Education Day. So proud of our teachers who work tirelessly each and every day bringing the joy of faith and learning into the classroom.

Letters to the Editor

Tax argument a failed, old idea

RE: Editorial “Alberta needs a budget reno,” ATA News, April 10

As predictably as a broken clock, editorial author Jonathan Teghtmeyer thinks it is time to raise our taxes. Let us stop and look at his staggering numbers before we nod sagely in agreement.

He suggests that Alberta could collect $11.2 billion more in taxes and still be the lowest in Canada, a dubious distinction at best as those of you who just filed your taxes can attest. This is meant to seem a reasonable request but let’s look at how the tax bill is actually split up.

According to the Government of Canada, in 2014, 28 million Canadians filed taxes out of a population of 35 million. A study conducted by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation using data from the Canadian Revenue Agency showed that 33 per cent of tax filers paid zero or less net tax. Since Alberta has about 10 per cent of the population, we had about 2.8 million filers who fell into this “zero tax” bracket. Teachers making between $50,000 and $99,999 are part of the 23 per cent of tax filers who pay 35 per cent of total taxes, according to the study. Divided over those 600,000 people, 35 per cent of Mr. Teghtmeyer’s $11.2 billion averages to more than $6,500 each.

How do you like that? Of course if your salary is more than $100,000, as is the case for many ATA members, your share is more than $20,000.

So why are we all paying Mr. Teghtmeyer to promote such high tax policies every month? Have previous tax raises led to lower class sizes? Salary increases for frontline teachers? Anything?

Yet Mr. Teghtmeyer thinks that even more taxes are the answer. So not only does our ATA bring back zero per cent salary change but openly advocates to take more of what money we do make. I think it is fair to expect more than the same old failed ideas from our employees.

Brian Ross

Math and science, Westview School, Calgary

Letters to the Editor represent the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Alberta Teachers’ Association.