SARGE !!!You wrote:
"Anyway, on the personal income taxes. You should check all your facts. I just did a taxtips test and a person with OAS of 8600, CPP of 10,500, and dividends of 50,000 pays total tax of $1935 in BC compared $2954 in AB. That's a whooping 52.7% more."
Well, Sarge ALL Canadians pay federal income tax at the VERY SAME RATES wherever they live in this great country. Provincial income tax rates and treatments of different income streams vary greatly.
So if your AB retiree paid so much more tax than his BC counterpart that would be because of the ALBERTA tax rules and treatments!!! It certainly is not the federal government's problem!
Furthermore if you YOU got your facts right it might explain why so many Albertans retire in BC. Who knew it wasn't just about the climate!!! I will add that this influx of AB retirees to BC skews completely the calculations used by Danielle Smith on her crusade to withdraw from the CPP. When AB retirees decamp to BC at retirement time their cheques are sent to BC addresses....so OF COURSE she complains that AB gets "shortchanged" because benefits paid to Albertans, now lliving in BC, are recorded as paid to BC residents. This artificially LOWERS the benefits paid to Albertans and artificially INCREASES benefits paid in BC by the CPP. I live on Vancouver Island....Alberta retirees are literally EVERYWHERE around here! (I would think that the number of BC residents retiring in AB is quite LOW for various reasons...your tax analysis added just one more reason I hadn't heard about before)
As far your suggestion that I "check my facts"....I used Turbo tax....click on this link, enter 100k of income and compare provinces for yourself:
https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tax-resources/canada-income-tax-calculator.jsp
Regards, Packer