Business Leader Expects Tax Increases

A warning from the Premier that some difficult years lie ahead and people will have to implement some difficult measures to cope with the fiscal crisis facing the province.
Moosehead's Andrew Oland expects consumption taxes to be increased but he says the economic fortunes of the province are in many respects out of our control.
He says a lot depends on the sluggish U-S economy because it's a key market for a lot of our goods and services.
Oland says we have to acknowledge we're in a desperate fiscal situation.

Promised Tax Break Helping Fuel Optimism

There's a lot of uncertainty about what the future economic prospects will be especially if the new provincial government decides to raise some taxes to try to whittle down the deficit which exceeds 800 million dollars.
Despite that, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is reporting small businesspeople in the province remain generally optimistic.
The C-F-I-B's Andrea Bourgeois says the government's promise to reduce the small business tax rate from five percent to 2.5-percent over the next couple of years is probably helping to drive the optimism.
Sixty-four per cent of the small business owners in the province complain tax and the cost of regulations are causing them grief.

Tax Talk Raises Concerns

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is concerned about what it's hearing at the economic summit in Moncton on the future of the province. The federation's Atlantic Director Kevin Lacey tells CHSJ News speaker after speaker is talking about the need to raise taxes.
He says New Brunswick doesn't have a taxation problem - it has a spending problem and the Alward government should be looking at ways to reduce spending before thinking about tax hikes.
Lacey maintains families in the province can't afford higher taxes because average weekly earnings fell this year by .2 per cent while inflation rose by 1.8 per cent so they're falling behind even without taxes going up.