Ontario's Finance Minister conceded Thursday that the government dropped the ball on tax credit payouts to some Ontario residents and did not anticipate the fury that the new scheme would cause.
Seniors, students and those on social assistance get tax credits for rent, energy, property and sales taxes, but instead of being paid in one big cheque, the government opted to roll the credits into the Ontario Trillium Benefit in monthly instalments. The new payment method will begin in July.
Now Finance Minister Dwight Duncan concedes that the government erred on the payouts.
"We didn't do this very well. We should have spent more time preparing people for it," Duncan told CTV Toronto's Pat Foran. "We still think it's a good idea."
Although it is too late to change the payment pattern this year, Duncan said recipients will be given an option on how to be paid in the future.
"We hear them and we are going to change back to a system where they can choose," he said.
Two quarterly payments have already been paid with two others planned for March and June. Duncan said the method was designed to help recipients in the lower tax brackets better manage their money.
But Ontario residents like Lynn Judd, of Bolton, Ont., said they can take care of themselves.
"We can all manage our own money and why this government has made a decision to do this and then say that they can't; they are turning it around. They are going to get people who are really mad."
