Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 1993 the Government of the Northwest Territories established the NWT Payroll Tax at 1 percent. In 2005 we upped that percentage to 2 percent.
Currently our government collects $42.7 million in payroll tax.
This tax was originally created to tax everybody who worked in the Northwest Territories and then rebate the residents of the Northwest Territories their 2 percent. Since that time, the GNWT has begun to keep that tax from some of the higher paid individuals, higher income earners. We are collecting taxes from out of province, but now were taxing our residents.
In this time that we talk about cost of living, this is a factor. This is a major factor. We’re not talking about exorbitant amounts of people; we’re talking about people who make a certain amount of money who get their money back. That number of people is getting less and less. The average earner in the Northwest Territories now gets taxed that 2 percent and doesn’t get the rebate back.
We need to improve this. This needs to be changed. We’ve had lots of people talk about the fly-in/fly-out workers and that we need to increase this payroll tax to 5 percent and give the payroll tax back to the residents of the Northwest Territories so that they can invest back into the Northwest Territories and help their cost of living in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, we need this government to give the residents of the Northwest Territories a break, a tax break. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.