Income tax reductions in next budget: Finance Minister

Finance Minister Graham Steele has delivered his final pre-budget forecast of this fiscal year, which ends on March 31st.

“At budget time last year, we forecast a deficit of $390-million,” Steele said while addressing the Halifax Chamber of Commerce Tuesday afternoon at Casino Nova Scotia. “We’re now forecasting a deficit of $261 million. That means we beat the budget by $129 million.”

During his speech, Steele also delivered some insight into what will be included in his 2012-13 budget scheduled to be table on April 3rd.

“There will be no significant new revenue measures,” he said. “There will be modest but real income tax reductions.”

Steele offered no details of how much the income tax reduction will be. However, he did say the income tax break is much cheaper than lowering the HST.

“To take a point off the HST is $175-million,” he says. “I can tell you that the income tax reductions are not anywhere remotely close to that amount of money. It is not a large amount of money, but it’s real, and it will impact tens of thousands of Nova Scotians.”

Steele says the Dexter Government is still committed to presenting a balanced budget next year, in 2013, as planned.

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