Carbon tax increase in Alberta should be offset ‘for most households’ | 24CA News
It’s no April Fool’s joke.
The federal carbon value enhance takes impact on April 1 will impression the prices to warmth houses and run different gasoline home equipment. But a lot of that’s anticipated to be offset by family rebates, particularly for Albertans with common or beneath common incomes.
“From the median household income and down, the household rebate on the carbon tax should be — for most of those households — bigger than what they are facing in increased carbon costs,” mentioned Kent Fellows, assistant professor on the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. “So we price the carbon to try to get people to substitute away from it, but then there is a top-up that comes through that rebate.”
Fellows mentioned the equation flips for a lot of households with higher-than-average incomes.
“Higher income people tend to spend more on higher emitting goods, so they are paying more in carbon tax and they are getting the same rebate that a lower income family would get, so this is what we call a progressive tax structure,” Fellows mentioned.
Motorists anticipating some sticker shock on the pumps, tried to get forward of the rise.
“The prices fluctuate and from what I gather it might go up, so it’s better to fill up today than wait,” mentioned Kamran Bukhari.
“I was coming home and all the stations started to say like $1.40 a litre, and the stations close to my home were still $1.20, $1.21 so I thought I’d better fill up for less while I can,” mentioned Calgarian Daryl Lavallee.
The carbon tax quantities to roughly 14 cents per litre on gas, nevertheless we’ve already been paying about 11 cents.
“What we are going to see at the pump is probably somewhere around two cents (increase),” the U of C assistant professor mentioned. “I’d be really surprised if at midnight we watch that price go up all at once. Some stations may have already started to price it in. Others will price it over the next couple of weeks.”
In phrases of impacts to trade, sure sectors like heavy emitters and agriculture are disproportionately affected.
Fellows mentioned the federal carbon insurance policies are designed with that in thoughts.
Farmers have already got an exemption for the gasoline or diesel they use to plant and harvest crops.
A non-public members invoice handed just lately which may even exempt farmers from the carbon tax on the pure gasoline and propane they used to dry crops and warmth barns.
However the invoice isn’t anticipated to take impact till this fall.
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