It’s a bittersweet victory. This paragraph from the budget brief released Tuesday is both good and bad:

“This Government has lowered taxes every year since coming into office. In fact, since 2006 the Government has introduced over 180 tax relief measures. The overall federal tax burden is now at its lowest level in more than 50 years.”

This can only be great news, right? What’s not to love? Canadians are paying the lowest in taxes in half a century!

We’re certainly happy with the results and you should be too.

But the process kind of bugs us.

Those 180 measures they’re referring to are tax credits – ranging from income splitting to the search and rescue volunteers' credit to the children’s fitness credit.

The five federal tax rates for 2015 range from 15 to 29%. But that figure is brought down once you factor in all the tax credits people are eligible for.

Both in theory and in practice, bringing Canadians’ effective rates down is a good thing. We just wish it was done more efficiently.

There’s a cost to administering all of these credits. Every new credit put in place takes time and money on both the side of the taxpayer and the government.

It’s a lot of paperwork. A lot of bureaucracy.

A 2013 study released by the Fraser Institute estimated that Canadians shelled out between $4.6 billion and $6.7 billion in tax compliance costs one year.

That’s right. Billions of dollars down the drain not in paying your taxes, but in paying to pay your taxes. That’s a lot of money!

So what’s the answer? Get rid of them.

But didn’t we just say they’re good? Certainly. They’re good compared to nothing at all. However there is an alternative: Lower the rates.

Those five federal tax rates? Just bring them all down a few points.

Find out what percentage, on average, these different segments of tax filers are actually paying, after all their credits are factored in, and lower the general rates to match.

Politicians love tax credits because it’s a way to cater to special interest groups.

But the government needs to move on this because the more credits there are, the costlier the compliance.