Down with taxes, up with inequality

Stephen Gordon troubleshoots a proposal—championed by the New Democrats and Conservatives in Ontario, but also the federal NDP—to cut the sales tax on home heating bills.

Removing the HST on heating will cost a certain amount of money - apparently on the order of $350m. The share of those foregone revenues that will go to households in the highest income quintile is almost three times the share that will go to the low-income households that the measures’ proponents loudly insist are its focus. More than half of the money will go to people in the top 40%; only a quarter will go to the bottom 40%. As redistributional measures go, it’s more progressive than offering free yacht maintenance, but not as progressive as actually giving more money to those with lower incomes.

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