Thank you. Minister.
Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2018
This is page numbers 3407 – 3442 of the Hansard for the 18th Assembly, 3rd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going.
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair. Those are not approved projects, so we do not account for them. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the response from the Minister, but that's not what I asked. Given that we do not have much room before we hit the debt wall, how can we have any assurance of that? Why do we keep submitting these proposals to the federal government for these large infrastructure projects when we do not have much fiscal capacity to do it? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes
Yes. Thank you. That goes back to my responses to Ms. Green before. This is one of the reasons that we would go to the federal government. If we do get a project of this size, part of the proposal we bring to them is that we need to see an increase to our debt limit to help us with our share of the project. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have been on record as expressing concerns about raising, perhaps, unrealistic expectations by submitting all of these large infrastructure project proposals at the same time, so I will leave that one at that. That's all I have got. Thanks.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair R.J. Simpson
Thank you. Anything further from committee? Seeing nothing, I will call the borrowing plan. Borrowing plan for the government reporting entity and established borrowing limits for the Government of the Northwest Territories, total government borrowing, established limits per 2018-2019 Appropriation Act, $811,688,000. Does committee agree?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair R.J. Simpson
Thank you, committee. Committee, please turn back to Department of Finance. We can now consider the departmental total and the information contained on pages 136 to 140. That includes the revenue summary, graphs, organizational charts. First, I have Ms. Green.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Julie Green Yellowknife Centre
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am going to have another run at that question that I tried in the wrong place. So what I see on page 140 under taxation, personal income tax, is that the estimate of income tax to be collected in this fiscal year, about $82.5 million; in the next fiscal year, about $103 million? I am wondering why the Department of Finance thinks there will be a rebound of over $20 million in this area. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Stewart
Thanks, Mr. Chair. So, when we forecast the take from personal income tax as well as corporate tax, we work with Finance Canada. I think the Member can appreciate that you do not have the full benefit of all of the tax filing when you are doing those estimates.
In the case of the 2017-2018 revised estimates, where the personal income tax went down quite significantly, the reality is that Finance Canada had overestimated the amount. What they discovered is that there were some, what they described as, “tax behaviours” that they did not account for, that were a result of some of the changes at the federal level in the income tax, and people were taking steps to avoid any increases that may take place.
Most of those impacts are expected to be just a single-year impact, and that is why they forecast for the following year, that we would be back up to $103 million, because of the one-time nature of some of the impacts that they saw.
We work closely with Finance Canada as they get those tax returns in to see if there are any other patterns. You could well imagine with all of the tax filers, sometimes those patterns are hard to discern, but that is the reason why it goes down and then is coming back up. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Julie Green Yellowknife Centre
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate Mr. Stewart's response. Does he have any example of tax avoidance as he referenced in his answer? Is he talking about, for example, investments in RRSPs or something other? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Stewart
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do not have anything too specific, but I am sure the Member was aware of all of the various proposals that the federal government put forward. I think there were things around income-splitting and being able to have some of the expenses from your business written off for family members and those sorts of things.
Not all of those changes came through, but, when they were announced as possible changes, I think what happened was that people were noting that those were coming and did some steps to structure themselves a little bit differently.
We can see if the federal government has a paper on some of those specifics that they could share with us, that we could maybe give to the Members to be able to explain some of those differences that took place. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
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Julie Green Yellowknife Centre
Thank you to Mr. Stewart for that answer and to the offer of the additional information. I will leave that category.
Still under the category of taxation on page 140, the fuel tax and the payroll tax, does the GNWT audit these taxes for compliance? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Julie Green Yellowknife Centre
Thank you to the Minister for that response. When did the GNWT last audit each of these taxes? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters