Starting January 1st, the Government of Saskatchewan will once again index provincial tax brackets to inflation, protecting residents from paying higher income taxes.
Prairie Director of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation Todd MacKay says the government’s decision is a move in the right direction.
“It’s the right thing to do, my only criticism here is they should have done it a long time ago, but better late than never,” said MacKay. “It’s good because this is going to protect taxpayers from getting bumped into higher tax brackets just because of inflation.”
The government had temporarily stopped indexing tax brackets in the 2017-18 budget. Indexation until then had saved taxpayers approximately $9 million per year.
MacKay says he believes the economic impact of the pandemic played a part in the government’s decision to resume indexing.
“Taxpayers are all struggling. All of us are finding things tough in lots of different ways because of the pandemic and all the economic turmoil around that,” said MacKay. “The last thing we need is higher taxes, we can’t afford that, no taxpayers have more money kicking around for higher tax.”
Saskatchewan joins several other provinces and the federal government in providing some form of indexation. The Alberta government stopped indexing in 2020.
