Budget 2015 What’s In It For Me ?

When I say, what is in it for me (the Federal Budget for 2015), I mean ME, the BCM, since you should read it yourself and figure out what is good (and bad) for you.

What do I (the Big Cajun Man) dislike about this budget? I am not fond of the “sleight of hand” accounting that is going on to claim the “balanced budget”, I am not that worried about it being balanced, and having odd payouts on programs (and cutting programs without necessarily mentioning it), smacks of “Nortel-ian” accounting practices.

I’d also like to have all taxes abolished if you were asking, but given that is not likely to happen in my lifetime, I guess I should get on to the things that I do like about this budget:

• The TFSA limit is officially doubled to $10,000, I like that, even though I am middle class, and can’t use all this savings room just yet. I am concerned that the Liberals are already threatening to roll this back to $5000, never a good idea to take things away from folks in programs.
• The “Family tax credit” for families like mine, where I can income share with my spouse is now officially in the budget (although I already have it for the last fiscal year). Wonder whether the Liberals or NDP will try to cut that as well, again, never good form taking money out of folks pockets. The UCCB is nice as well.
• I am kind of baffled/curious about this statement:
  

  Making the Canada Student Loans Program work for families by reducing the expected parental contribution under the needs assessment process.

  What does this mean? I don’t know but it sure sounds nice.

• Reducing EI premiums is nice, as it is a tax, no matter how you define it.
• Another useful idea, that I think I like is:
  

  Extending Employment Insurance Compassionate Care Benefits from six weeks to six months to better support Canadians caring for gravely ill family members.

• Seniors now have a less aggressive withdrawal schedule from their RRIFs as well, seeing as I will be thinking about that soon, I like it.
• Another useful credit for folks with disabled family members, or seniors who need to add things to their house to make it a bit safer for them
  

  Introducing a new Home Accessibility Tax Credit for seniors and persons with disabilities to help with the costs of ensuring their homes remain safe, secure and accessible.

• Another interesting and somewhat non-commital statement is:
  

  Launching a National Strategy to support improved financial literacy.

  but I suspect that means they won’t be giving me a subsidy for this site 🙂

• Some good ideas for veterans, but still not enough, for someone who you asked to go into harm’s way.
• Another point near and dear to my heart, but again, the wording is a bit odd:
  

  $2.0 million in 2015–16 to support stakeholder consultations on a Canadian Autism Partnership.

  I am not sure whom they will be consulting with.

There are a bunch of other measures, that you should read about, to see how it affects you. You could read the Tweets about it, if you want a really short version of the important stuff.