Canadian CANNAINVESTOR Magazine July / August 2019 | Page 192

Let’s turn back to your party and its policies. As a CPA, I am sort of at the front line, or in the trenches, come tax time. Even while still in the honeymoon phase with the electorate, I saw first-hand right out of the gate almost … a glimpse of things to come while preparing tax returns and answering questions – the most common concerns can be paraphrased as follows:

We use the tax rebate from income splitting to put into our RRSPs, TFSAs, and RESPs …

I voted Liberal because of their commitment to the climate and right out of the gate the tax credit for public transit was removed and families like ours rely on these credits.

Where did the fitness credit for children go? We need to encourage fitness and the costs keep going up and up …

Similar to the above question … where did the arts credit go because we used this credit for tutoring … when two of us have to work to make ends meet we rely on tutors to ensure our children are getting the help we just cannot always give …we thought this party was dedicated and committed to the arts.

And of course most recently … this carbon tax is hitting our household at every turn whether higher costs for gas directly or indirectly in higher costs across the board it seems. There must be another way …

And I saved this one for last and believe me it seems to be the one that upsets the most I have spoken to with over the years – where did the “education amount” tax credit go because we need this credit to help offset the costs of the education that today’s young adults need? For those of our readers not familiar with the “education amount” it is a tax credit based on the number of months of either part time or full time attendance in eligible post-secondary education. 2016 was its final year and the combined credits at that time were $465 per month for full time students and $140 per month for part time students. This tax credit has existed since at least the 80’s.

The above are just the main ones and the changes to the monthly benefit received did not at all help those families hit with all of the above tax increases (effectively) and all at once. I can appreciate how the new platform allows families just starting off with the means to replicate much of the above or use the money for other priorities but one would have thought for the education and text book credits that there would have been a phased in period or grandfathering period for those of a certain age. What could our government do differently come budget 2020?

So with that backdrop and just succinctly ... what could our government be doing differently to not only assist families with the costs of education and fitness and arts but also to encourage the use of transit as just a few examples? AND to put you on the spot a bit here … what would your party specifically do?

legal to produce it in 1998. The government allowed more parts of the plant to be harvested last year. And the industry seems to be growing fast now.

There never were any good reason to restrain the culture or use of hemp, but even less so now that cannabis has been legalized. We need to get rid of the remaining barriers, and make it easy for farmers to grow it. That’s what I want to look at.

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