I'm doubtful about one thing though: a link between trust and residential property taxes. Evidence against:
* Compared to other countries, Canada already has relatively high levels of trust and taxes.
* Denmark and Norway have much higher self-reported trust than Canada, but a cursory Google search shows that residential property taxes in their capitals are comparable to those of Canadian cities.
* Vancouver property owners have successfully been lobbying for lower taxes for over 100 years. Is social media really making this worse?
(I'm not especially knowledgeable about this topic, just sharing my reaction)
Great post.
I'm doubtful about one thing though: a link between trust and residential property taxes. Evidence against:
* Compared to other countries, Canada already has relatively high levels of trust and taxes.
* Denmark and Norway have much higher self-reported trust than Canada, but a cursory Google search shows that residential property taxes in their capitals are comparable to those of Canadian cities.
* Vancouver property owners have successfully been lobbying for lower taxes for over 100 years. Is social media really making this worse?
(I'm not especially knowledgeable about this topic, just sharing my reaction)
Hi Jay, good question. I'm thinking of taxes in general rather than just property taxes. In BC, just trying to switch from GST (7%) + PST (5%) to HST (12%) failed, as did the referendum on TransLink funding. Meanwhile the Scandinavian countries have had value-added taxes of about 25% for a long time, and higher levels of social spending than most countries. https://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2009/08/economic-policy-advice-for-the-ndp-part-iii-the-gst.html
Not sure I've seen solid data on whether social media is resulting in low trust and higher resistance to taxes, but it seems unlikely to be helping!