My last post became a "which tax is better to reduce" trend. Which got me thinking about just where the money you earn disappears to.
Okay, you go to work from Mon - Fri, so typically you work 40 hours a week. For this productivity you get paid some gross amount (that you never see). From this Gross pay, they deduct:
Federal income tax
Provincial income tax
CPP
EI
Others might include:
Health insurance (Blue Cross and AHC, in Alberta)
Parking
Union dues
What's left is your Net Pay. You have two options, consume it or save it.
Let's consume some, and save some.
You pay GST on most of what you buy.
You pay PST on most everything you buy (Not in Alberta, Thank the Lord).
You pay utilities, ever notice the sewage fee (tax) is about equal to the amount of water you consume?
You pay property taxes to fund schools.
You pay for parking.
You pay for licensing your pets.
You pay for holding a yard/garage sale.
You pay for upgrading your sidewalks and streets (amortized over 20 years).
You pay fees to fly. Recycle fees, you pay to take garbage to the dump.
Then you save some:
You pay to take money out of your RRSP, when you can least afford it (retired).
You pay capital gains on investments.
You pay taxes on dividends.
And finally, your family pays death taxes on anything you might have had left.
Are you depressed yet? Feeling over taxed?
We pay taxes on money that has already been taxed, but some lefties think that's not enough, we should be happy our tax money goes to needle programs, daycares, and the BIGGY, global warming (What a scam that one is, money spent on that, can not be spent on our grandkids future).
When it comes right down to it, ANY tax reduction we can get, is a good reduction.
Bet I've missed some taxes, feel free to add them to the list. Or just sit there and cry in your beer (taxed) while having a smoke (taxed).
7 comments:
Exactly, Hunter. Which is why I support a flat tax like you do. It's absolutely and completely a fleecing of Canadians, and what's worse, not a single person in Canada understands the tax system completely. It's a mess. One year I made $40,000 or something around there and I got $2,500 back in taxes. The next year I was out of the country and had something like $12,000 declared income. I didn't even bother to file until a year later. Turns out they said I owed them $67. Can you imagine the unmitigated gall of that?
Not real sure but it looks like the WildRose Party want to at least take a shot at reducing taxes on the Provincal level anyway.
I'm 100% with Raphael. A flat tax is the answer to many of Canada's tax woes. I posted about it awhile ago but there's a great op-ed about a flat tax in Canada released by the Fraser institute last month.
http://thecanadianrepublic.blogspot.com/2008/01/fraser-institute-time-for-flat-tax-in.html
A flat tax would be great, except that accountants would not be in demand as much, and revenue Canada would not need as many people to check tax returns.
Imagine, a one page form: Income - 10% flat tax, and you are done! We could only wish.
Ahhh...flat tax...a great idea!...right from the Reform movement...
I think it was Preston Manning's idea.
It's an idea that has been kicking around for a long time, but Preston did champion it. Doesn't make it a bad idea.
Alberta has a flat tax provincially, works fine.
Reduce the paper work, the need for accountants to file our taxes, phoney tax credits, phoney expenses by businesses...the list is endless, the reasons not to do it are???
Tax Freedom Day is the end of June for most of us. At least we can spend our own money on a summer beer
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