Conservative Majority to bring Tax Changes, Eventually

With Stephen Harper’s Conservative party winning a majority in yesterday’s election, we can expect some significant tax changes for individuals, but not any time soon. Combing through the Conservative platform, I found only one measure aimed at individuals, the extension of the ecoENERGY program, that is likely to benefit me in the short term. All other interesting measures only kick in once the federal budget is balanced, if that ever happens.

The three promises that would affect me most are

– Family tax cut: The ability to shift up to $50,000 of income from one spouse to another each year.

– Doubling TFSA limit: New yearly contribution limit of $10,000.

– Adult Fitness Tax Credit: Do we get credit for the cost of the post-game beer?

I suppose it makes sense to make expensive promises contingent on healthy country finances, but such goodies also play well politically when your opponents are making big spending promises. Here’s hoping that we actually get the budget balanced within a decade, even if the Conservatives aren’t around to enact their promises.