Taxes are killing us.
- Thread starter JLM
- Start date
I hear now that bank interest rates are going to be raised about 1/2% in June, so I guess we'll have both the Gov't and the Banks $crewing up. I'm also wondering if H.S.T. will be imposed on bank interest. Since H.S.T. is charged on services I suspect interest charges will be renamed "service charges".
Oh yeah,steve was such a hero when he knocked 2% off the gst,something I don't think made a bit of difference since the "middle men'sucked it up by jacking the price of everything up that 2%. NOW that steve and his lackys have got us,what about sixty billion in the hole we;'er going to see higher taxes and more cuts ,but just to stuff that affect the average,low/mid income earner.
That is why income tax cut is much fairer than GST cut. In addition to the fact that GST disproportionately favours the rich, GST depends upon the old trickle down economics. The idea is that reward the businesses (or the rich) by cutting GST and they will pass on the savings to the customer. But they are under no obligation to do so; no doubt some of them simply jack up the prices to compensate for it.
And yes, Conservatives have got us the biggest deficit we have ever had, they even topped the second biggest deficit we ever had (not surprisingly, also incurred by a conservative, Mulroney).
Except of course, when Mulroney was in power (and excepting of course, the last three and a half years).
Congratulations Walter- I generally agree with you on very little, but I have to commend you are this post- I'm going to submit your name for the Pullitzer Prize for Literature. :smile::smile:
We got the GST cut, then hubby and I decided we could push it a little further and drop our rate of consumerism down. 
We grow a lot more of our own food, don't drive unless it is carpooling or unless we need to, almost dropped off the grid, and so on. Gov't gets quite a bit less from us than it used to. A lot of it was wasted anyway so now we can put it to good use.
We grow a lot more of our own food, don't drive unless it is carpooling or unless we need to, almost dropped off the grid, and so on. Gov't gets quite a bit less from us than it used to. A lot of it was wasted anyway so now we can put it to good use.
We got the GST cut, then hubby and I decided we could push it a little further and drop our rate of consumerism down.
That's the spirit Anna- I kind of like the old Barter System, it's good in that besides saving you money it makes it tougher for the Gov't. to get their nose into your business. ( I can grow Swiss Chard really good if you wanna grow spuds) :lol::lol::lol:
i get taxed 30% of my cheque
And that's just the tip of the iceberg added to P.S.T. G.S.T. Property taxes, tobacco taxes, liquor taxes, 47 different kinds of licenses and permits, taxes on insurance, capital gains taxes. Actually I'm a little skeptical that it's only 42%. Probably more Gov't bullsh*t on that too. Oh yeah there's also about 47 different kinds of fees like on tires, batteries, pop cans juice bottles. I better quit now, I'm getting ready to puke.
We got the GST cut, then hubby and I decided we could push it a little further and drop our rate of consumerism down.
Now that's what I like about more selective taxes like resource taxes and what not. You're actually free to use your imagination to try to find ways around it... legally!
With income taxes, you're screwed no matter what you do.
Having said that, I don't mind moderate income taxes for certain things like education and helping the poor, but that's about it. For pretty well anything else, I tend to lean towards resource taxes so as to encourage us to avoid taxes by reducing consumption.
I kind of like the old system of "user pays" and if you don't think you can afford to pay you buy insurance.
You're right that the GST is likely less progressive than income taxes. But that can be remedied in various ways. No point throwing the baby out with the bath water. For example, the money collected could focus more on the most vulnerable, or co-determination laws and other such laws can help to redistribute wealth too. The NDP criticized the Greens and Liberals ferociously over the Green shift on the grounds that it would penalize the most vulnerable of Canadians. The Greens and Libs, though acknowledging this weakness, countered that it could be corrected the same way the GST by sending it back to the poorest. It still serves as a means of encouraging saving. I'd say replace the GST with a resource tax and reduce income tax too while we're at it. That way, there's be a natural incentive built into the economy to use our resources more efficiently.
I think a resouce tax kind of does that. You want the government to build more roads? No problem; buy more gas and you'll pay more taxes for the government to build more roads. You think the government builds too many roads? no problem; reduce your gas consumption and the government will have less money to build roads with. It would just go hand in hand quite nicely. Besides, the more you drive, the more roads we need and vice versa. If taxes relate to consumption, they won't need to be raised and dropped all the time since they'd naturally flow with the market.
Yep, I agree with that, same I guess with the G.S.T. and P.S.T. if you don't like paying them don't buy things where that tax is imposed. Income tax is the worst offender and also the hardest and most expensive to collect.