Normally in elections, party leaders fight like cats and dogs over public policy issues. However, what is clear at this point of the 2012 Alberta election, is that all of the party leaders agree on one thing; if elected, they will all work to slowly ruin Alberta’s income tax system.

Alberta currently has the best, cleanest income tax system in Canada. You can literally figure out how much you owe the provincial government on the back of a napkin.

For example, if you earn $55,000 a year, subtract the basic personal exemption of $17,282, deduct your EI premiums and CPP contributions ($840 and $2,307 respectively) and multiply the remainder by 10 per cent. ($55,000 - $17,282 - $870 - $2,307 = $34,541 x 10 per cent = $3,454.10).

The single rate is not only fair, transparent and simple, it does not unduly punish success and hard work. Furthermore, because of the generous basic personal and spousal exemptions, which importantly apply to every Albertan, Alberta’s income tax system is still progressive (meaning the more you earn, the more you pay in taxes as a percentage of your income).

The worst, and fortunately least likely to ever be implemented, are the pitches from the Alberta Liberals and NDP. Both have proposed changes that would destroy the simplicity and transparency of Alberta’s single-rate tax code. (The NDP are less specific, but the Liberals propose moving from one rate of 10 per cent to four rates of 10 per cent, 13 per cent, 15 per cent and 17 per cent).

Less egregious, but still unfortunate, are the plethora of tax credits and deductions being offered by the governing PC party and poll-leading Wildrose party. Both have proposed $500 tax credits for children’s sports activities. The Wildrose have also pitched a $2,000 tax deduction per child. And the PCs have proposed a $500 seniors activity tax credit and — in the most naked of vote-buying exercises — a $500 tax credit for Alberta’s 35,000 teachers.

Granted, there is unfortunately a small handful of small tax credits already on the books in Alberta complicating the tax code (adoption expenses, provincial political donations, etc.), but for the most part, Alberta’s tax code is the easiest to navigate in Canada.

Implementing these additional tax credits will really start the ball rolling towards ruining our clean, simple tax code.

To be sure, we at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation favour lower taxes, but we want lower taxes for all, not just for a select few. And when you are targeting a group like teachers, equivalent to less than one per cent of the entire population of the province, you are not really offering tax relief, you are offering election goodies at the expense of a simple tax code.

Seemingly, the political successes the federal Conservatives have realized in Ottawa are now breeding copycats in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s home province.

The original Dominion Income War Tax Act of 1917 was a mere 11 pages long. When the Harper government took office in 2006, previous governments had ballooned the tax code to a whopping 2,226 pages. Unfortunately, in six short years, the Harper government has now pushed the tax code to 2,935 pages by introducing myriad new tax credits, deductions and complications.

Some of these new tax credits include ones for riding public transit, putting your child into a sports or arts program, buying your first home or being a volunteer firefighter. They also include enhanced meal deductions for long-haul truck drivers.

If politicians want to cut taxes (and we hope they do), they should reduce the overall income tax rate, increase the basic universal exemption, cut gasoline taxes, chop insurance taxes or any other tax that the vast majority of their citizens pay. Don’t make Albertans keep a shoebox full of receipts and their accountant on speed dial.

Budgets in Canada have become exercises in vote extraction rather than sound fiscal policy. Alberta’s single rate tax is a proud achievement — a model for the rest of Canada. It would be unfortunate to see it watered down with crass vote-buying promises that will lend themselves to higher compliance costs and pit one group of taxpayers against another. We already get enough of that from Ottawa.