British Columbia auditor general Michael Pickup says the provincial government is using more up-to-date information to forecast income tax revenue, something he expects to improve financial estimates that have routinely been off by more than $1 billion every year.
He says in an audit of the government’s 2022-2023 financial statements that the change should reduce the size of adjustments to estimates of tax revenue which he says have been “frequently off target” for the last decade.
In 2022-2023, the government had to reduce its reported surplus by $1.86 billion after it changed the way it estimates personal and corporate income tax revenue.
Pickup says the way the government estimates tax revenue from individuals and corporations is important because it makes up about a third of the province’s revenue, amounting to about $26.5 billion last fiscal year.
The audit says that for the current fiscal year, the government consulted the auditor …