While we’re all wishing each other a happy New Year, our politicians are planning to wring even more out of our wallets in 2025.
Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are going to make life more expensive by hiking taxes in 2025. Higher payroll taxes (EI and CPP) are going to leave you with a less powerful paycheque and higher carbon taxes are going to make life more expensive.
Instead of an endlessly increasing tax burden, politicians should be cutting taxes to help British Columbians struggling to make ends meet. Government should focus on finding savings by cutting wasteful spending like cost overruns on capital projects and a bloated bureaucracy to save taxpayers money.
Here are the higher taxes that you are going to pay in 2025:
Federally, Trudeau is hiking payroll taxes on Canadians who make more than $64,000.
If a worker makes $81,000 or more, they will pay a total of $5,507 in federal payroll taxes, while their employer is also forced to pay $5,938. Those workers will pay $403 more in payroll taxes in 2025 compared to 2024.
That extra $403 being taken by the government could pay for a few weeks of groceries for most sa国际传媒 families.
Meantime, the federal government is also punishing investors, savers and small-business owners by increasing capital gains taxes.
The Trudeau government hiked capital gains taxes in its last budget. That tax hike took effect on June 25, 2024, and will cost taxpayers $3.4 billion in 2025-26. Economists like Jake Mintz estimate the capital gains tax hike will cause employment to plummet by 414,000 jobs, and sa国际传媒’s GDP will fall by almost $90 billion because of the tax hike.
The feds also announced a new digital streaming tax in the summer. The new streaming tax forces online streaming companies to pay five per cent of their Canadian revenues to the government. Industry associations and experts warn that the new streaming tax will make life more expensive by increasing bills for streaming services.
Ottawa’s new digital services tax is meant to target online marketplaces and social media sites that make revenue from online advertising. In reality, the costs are going to be passed on to consumers who are looking for a good deal on Amazon, Uber or Facebook Marketplace. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that the digital services tax will cost Canadians $1.2 billion in 2025-26.
If all that drives you to drink, Trudeau is hiking taxes on that, too. Taxes on beer, wine and spirits are going up by two per cent on April 1, 2025. Taxes already account for about half the price you pay for alcoholic beverages. That means for every beer or bottle of wine you buy, you’re also buying one for the government.
Not to be outdone by the feds, Eby is also hiking taxes on British Columbians in the new year.
Eby is raising the carbon tax on April 1. Right now, the provincial carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre, but it’s going up to about 21 cents per litre in the new year. The carbon tax will cost about $14 per minivan fill-up and add about $415 to the average sa国际传媒 households’ home heating bills.
The sa国际传媒 government’s new home flipping tax kicked in on Jan. 1. British Columbians who sell a home after owning it for less than 730 days will pay taxes on any income made from selling the property.
All of those tax hikes are going to make life more expensive for normal British Columbians.
One-in-five British Columbians are food insecure and a quarter of our province is dealing with “severely inadequate standards of living,” according to Food Banks sa国际传媒.
When so many British Columbians are being crushed by the cost of living, the government shouldn’t be making things worse by raising a slew of taxes.
Families, workers and small businesses can’t afford an even heavier tax burden.
Carson Binda is sa国际传媒 director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
