VICTORIA — The New Democratic Party will fund its spending promises for the May 14 election with measures including higher taxes on businesses and the wealthy, reintroducing a tax on banks and credit unions, and expanding the province’s carbon tax.

The proposals will go toward generating an extra $2 billion over three years, said Bruce Ralston, the party’s long-standing finance critic and co-chair of its platform committee.

Most of the proposed tax increases announced Thursday come as no surprise, as they have long been telegraphed by party leader Adrian Dix.

Those include: increasing the corporate income tax rate to 12 per cent from 11 per cent; reinstating a corporation capital tax on financial institutions; and increasing personal income taxes to 19 per cent for those making more than $150,000 a year.

Under the plan, someone making $350,000 annually would pay an extra $4,400 in personal income taxes each year, the New Democrats said Thursday.

Banks would pay a three-per-cent tax each year on net paid-up capital under the plan, while credit unions would pay one per cent.

B.C.’s rates would be the lowest of the seven provinces with such financial-institution taxes, the NDP said. But Central 1 Credit Union chief economist Helmut Pastrick said the move would make B.C. the only province charging such a tax on credit unions.

Ralston said Thursday’s plan is achievable. “It’s realistic and it doesn’t set false expectations about expenditure reduction that couldn’t be achieved without dramatic cuts in public services.”

An NDP government would not expect to table a balanced budget until 2016, he said.

The party will begin unveiling its platform spending promises next week, once the campaign has officially begun.

Thursday’s announcement included a new promise to broaden the carbon tax, which would be expanded to cover so-called venting emissions in the oil and gas sector, or those coming from the controlled release of waste gas during the production process.

Those emissions — along with chemical-process emissions and agriculture emissions — were not captured by the original carbon tax, but instead were supposed to be covered by a cap-and-trade system that never came to fruition.

Ralston said the new NDP plan would be phased in starting April 1, 2014.

He also said an NDP government will abandon the B.C. Liberal commitment to make the carbon tax revenue-neutral.

“We are leaving open the possibility that in future negotiations with the regions or municipalities — but particularly regional governments — there might be an opportunity to use revenue for other initiatives such as transportation or other green initiatives that would reduce emissions,” he said.

So far, the government has offset any extra costs imposed by the carbon tax with matching reductions to personal and corporate taxes.

Ralston said no tax breaks would be introduced to offset the added carbon tax revenue from the oil and gas sector. He did not rule out other changes to the offsetting tax cuts, but would not offer any specific details.

Environmental groups welcomed the tax on oil and gas emissions, but said they would have preferred the NDP to continue increasing the carbon tax across the board.