Canada is pouring billions of dollars into the electric vehicle industry. Will it pay off? (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 2 years ago by NightOwl@lemm.ee to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago

There's no significant difference between the two.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago

Tax breaks remove potential future tax revenue, but aren't spending tax revenue acquired from another source.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

Yea, there's no significant difference - tax breaks spend revenue from a future source.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago

But with a tax break in an emerging business, that revenue wouldn't otherwise exist because the company wouldn't have opened operations here when it could take advantage of egregious US subsidies instead.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

You're falling into something akin to the broken window fallacy. Economic resources aren't created or destroyed by incentives, they are shifted. If that tax break didn't exist those loans, employees, potential capital etc.. would be doing something else. Tax breaks need to be extremely precisely honed to avoid lowering future income.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 years ago

Economic growth doesn't happen on its own. The Canadian economy isn't some entity that magically sees growth without investment.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago

So demand isn't somehow linked with supply?

[-] Rocket@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Did you accidentally read "does" instead of "doesn't"? Supply and demand being intrinsically linked is why economic growth does not happen on its own. If there was some way to separate them, then economic growth could theoretically happen on its own, but as that notion lives with fairytales and unicorns...

[-] Rocket@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It can make a big difference in who can use them. An income tax break, for example, is only useful to those who have income to tax. While a subsidy can fund a venture that does not yet have income.