Floyd Roland

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, the way our corporate tax is reported to our government, it is through the federal government. They collect our corporate tax and report it back to us. What we have done, is based on estimates of prior years, felt that we would build estimates on that, and as it gets closer to the actual time of preparing the draft main estimates we call federal Finance to get the actual last sort of up-to-date number that they have available. Based on those, we build our estimates.

Now on 12 percent, looking at what the estimates were built on, we felt, and through the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there are some real impacts here in the North as a result of the federal budget, but that is for 2004-05 and doesn’t offset the amount that was expended here. There is some money in the federal budget, and I think it is around the $400,000 figure, but I could be corrected on that. It is not a lot of money, but there are some real dollars coming north for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again I agree and respect the Member's position on taxes and tax initiatives, but we are trying to come up with an average. How many people earn $80,111? How many people earn $85,000? That bracket from $108,000 and upward, it's difficult to have an average because that goes from $108,000 up to $1 million. There are some people making very large amounts of income in the Northwest Territories. So trying to come up with an average number between those to say this is what the majority of those people, the 900 taxpayers -- I believe that's the figure, 900 taxpayers in...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the way our corporate tax situation works it is quite volatile if you do have investors who would choose to invest their earnings in the Northwest Territories, and that happened previously. In fact, there were two filings done in the Northwest Territories while we were at the 14 percent rate, and that is good news that we had filings there, but it also has caused us some problems going forward because of the way corporate taxes are paid to the GNWT from the federal government. So we could look at 2002-03, and 2000-01 to give you some accurate figures...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the previous estimate was approximately $7.2 million, so we are probably more in the area of around eight percent of an increase. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, trying to give you the exact figure of how many of the employees are GNWT employees that would fall into that bracket, there are probably a significant amount. As to the actual going forward, there are a number of factors that would come into play as a government how we would go forward, in either a negotiation setting or just in our cost measures that we have to look at going forward. But it's hard to try to estimate or predict what might be on the table and what issues are there, the type of increase they will use. The cost of living will be a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The current approach on the tax effort, as we've stated and stated to the federal government and put our arguments forward on is that it's not working in the Northwest Territories. Looking at alternative approaches is what we've been pursuing with Finance Canada, and we have had that agreement now with the news from Minister Goodale that they would forego that rebasing exercise for one year, and allow us that one year to come up with some work on the tax effort factor. We are starting to look at how we can develop something different than what is there now and, of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, once that supp is approved because it is an ongoing commitment, it then becomes part of the base of the Department of Health and Social Services. So you would see an adjustment from the 2004-05 mains. There would be revised mains which would incorporate those, and then the estimates for the 2005-06. So it would be wrapped up into the base and forward from there. Thank you.

I take the Member’s comments. As we go forward, we will be sharing the information and building into the business plan process on the initiatives we set forth as government and how we are going to save the next $20 million. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are a little bit better than middle of the pack, when you take a comparison to other jurisdictions. There is one at 4.5, one at three percent, and we're at four. I think there are only actually three lower than us in the small corporate tax area. I'm corrected: two. So we're third lowest in the small corporate tax area. Thank you.