OTTAWA (Staff) – For every dollar of taxes sent by prairie farmers to their federal and provincial governments each spring, the governments have been sending back at least $2 in support payments.
According to a Statistics Canada analysis of 1990, 1991 and 1992 tax and program payment records, unincorporated prairie farms paid $1.378 billion in taxes to provincial and national capitals.
During those same years, support programs sent out $3.348 billion to farmers.
Even considering the several hundred million in farmer premiums paid those years, farmers were significant winners in the exchange.
Saskatchewan farmers gained the most, sending $651 million to governments and receiving $1.758 billion in supports.
In Alberta, $522 million went to the taxman and $1.09 billion came back in support payments.
In Manitoba, the trade-off was $205 million to governments and $500 million back.
To the average farmer, these program payments represented a significant portion of income.
In Saskatchewan in 1992, for example, the average unincorporated farmer paid $4,793 in tax to the two levels of government. That same average farm received $13,687 in support payments.
In Alberta that year, the average farmer paid $5,195 in tax and received $14,045 in program payments.
