Harper pitches income splitting for families

[Goober]

As for the income splitting, I do see the point with regards to the rich benefiting more from it than the poor. I don't believe that that alone is a bad idea though if it is counterbalanced with other policies to help the poor.

Did he mention that - Nope - This promise is comparable to the one you make in a bed after meeting in a Bar -Yes i will still love you in the morning. That has more cred than Harpers promise.

Now think on it - 4, 5 or 6 years down the road. Right.

 

[PoliticalNick]

All the tax breaks should be directly to the poor and working class until we have no national debt. I don't mean a surplus budget I mean 0$ national debt. Until that happens hit the rich and corporate sector as hard as possible.

 

[taxslave]

Your idea sounds good on paper but becomes a regressive taxation program (regressive being as your income & assets increase you pay a lesser % overall). We all have to eat and move around and all that stuff and all use about the same on average. Under such a program as you suggest the wealthy would pay about the same as someone who makes minimum wage. I could go for a program of income tax credits for reducing consumption such as removing a vehicle from the road or installing solar into your house but our base system should be progressive taxation where those with more income and assets pay more tax than those with little income or assets.

As in those of us that work hard to get ahead should give more of our money to the freeloaders?
I want an income tax system where you are only taxed on the first 40 hours of work. After that it is all yours.

 

[Unforgiven]

Compared to many other popular tax proposals, I actually like the idea of a carbon tax owing to its being more rational in its impact in encouraging more efficient use of resources. If you have to pay more to use these resources, you'll use them more efficiently. also, it makes taxes somewhat more user pay in that those who buy more gas are likely to drive more and so they ought to contribute more to road construction.

This is simply not true. We use what we use in daily life and that the story of it. Changing what we pay for it only changes what we can also pay for. Those who have to drive to work won't drive to work any less because they pay $200 bucks a month more for it. They just go without all the extras at Christmas and the vacation is shorter and not so exclusive. The tv still goes on, the laundry still gets done and the drive to work gets a little more depressing.

I actually agree with waiting until the debt is paid off before reducing taxes. It's just a shame that, when he'd said we could not afford income splitting in the leaders' debate last election, we now know why: he obviously had some big spending plans in mind already to be able to confidently propose such tax cuts.

You are probably confusing debt with with deficit. We'll not pay this debt off in your lifetime. This deficit, maybe if we can get rid of these spend happy conservatives. (I don't even know why they have that name these days)

Again, I fully agree with no tax cuts until the debt's paid off; that's just good fiscal policy. My problem is with his saying last election we couldn't afford such tax cuts and then turning around and spending like a drunken sailor. At least be consistent: if we can't afford such tax cuts (which is reasonable enough an argument), then obviously we can't afford spending increases either.

And yet they call the Liberals tax and spend.

 

[PoliticalNick]

As in those of us that work hard to get ahead should give more of our money to the freeloaders?
I want an income tax system where you are only taxed on the first 40 hours of work. After that it is all yours.

Good luck with that idea...

There are 3 types of taxation,

Regressive - you pay a lesser percentage of your income in overall taxation as your income increases. Due to all the sales taxes and licensing fees etc this is what we have now. There is some small mitigation for the poor in the form of GST rebates etc but it still comes out as regressive.

Progressive - you pay a greater percentage of your income to overall taxation as your income increases. This would be a system where almost all taxes are collected directly from income and assets (property tax) and there is very little in the way of sales taxes.

Flat Rate - everybody pays an equal percentage of overall income no matter how much the income or how much spending. While most think this is the most fair system it goes against the generally accepted principal that those who have more ability to pay pay more than those with less ability to pay.

 

[jjaycee98]

If he really cared, all he had to do was say, "If you've got kids, you get a tax break... so much per kid".

That's much simpler than the calculations required to do the accounting behind income splitting.

But he has already done this. There is the $2102 credit for each child under 18 years, plus the $1200 cash momney for each child under 6. Under the Fiberals all credits for your kids were removed and the CTB dissappeared for those who just managed to squeak over the poverty line.

 

[Machjo]

All the tax breaks should be directly to the poor and working class until we have no national debt. I don't mean a surplus budget I mean 0$ national debt. Until that happens hit the rich and corporate sector as hard as possible.

As a fiscal conservative, I could go with that. I'd say:

1. No tax reductions for anyone until the debt is paid off.
2. Tax increases to pay off the debt.
3. Tax shifting towards more user-pay taxes such as gas taxes so as to discourage irrisponsible use of public infrastructure such as roads so as to further save money on those areas.

 

[Unforgiven]

But he has already done this. There is the $2102 credit for each child under 18 years, plus the $1200 cash momney for each child under 6. Under the Fiberals all credits for your kids were removed and the CTB dissappeared for those who just managed to squeak over the poverty line.

But then again that was back when everyone had jobs, unemployment was down to 5% and there were prospects for small business.

Just out of curiosity, you call the Liberals the Fiberals, yet with Oda telling lies right in the house, Harper and his Conservative government in contempt of parliament,(the only party to have managed that feat, don't you think it's just that you call the Conservative Party liars too? cough senate reform cough

As a fiscal conservative, I could go with that. I'd say:

1. No tax reductions for anyone until the debt is paid off.
2. Tax increases to pay off the debt.
3. Tax shifting towards more user-pay taxes such as gas taxes so as to discourage irrisponsible use of public infrastructure such as roads so as to further save money on those areas.

Yeah, and you would be considered for almost two seconds before the laughing started. Why do you feel that it's up to us to pay off the debt? As it stands at the moment, you own over $16,336 of the debt. If you have a wife and kids, simply multiply that amount by the number of family members you have.

Now on top of the roughly $25,0000 you owe the government in taxes a year just how much of this debt do you feel you want to pay off? How about if you pay $200 from every pay check every two weeks for every person in your family? That would put your reduction at about $5000 per year.

Don't forget that there are some who simply can't pay their share of that debt. So you're going to have to make a portion of their payments too.

Now with your platform of raising personal income taxes some $7,000 per year, how many people are going to vote you into office?

 

[Machjo]

But then again that was back when everyone had jobs, unemployment was down to 5% and there were prospects for small business.

Just out of curiosity, you call the Liberals the Fiberals, yet with Oda telling lies right in the house, Harper and his Conservative government in contempt of parliament,(the only party to have managed that feat, don't you think it's just that you call the Conservative Party liars too? cough senate reform cough



Yeah, and you would be considered for almost two seconds before the laughing started. Why do you feel that it's up to us to pay off the debt? As it stands at the moment, you own over $16,336 of the debt. If you have a wife and kids, simply multiply that amount by the number of family members you have.

Now on top of the roughly $25,0000 you owe the government in taxes a year just how much of this debt do you feel you want to pay off? How about if you pay $200 from every pay check every two weeks for every person in your family? That would put your reduction at about $5000 per year.

Don't forget that there are some who simply can't pay their share of that debt. So you're going to have to make a portion of their payments too.

Now with your platform of raising personal income taxes some $7,000 per year, how many people are going to vote you into office?

So how do you propose paying off the debt? Inflate our way out of it? That worked out mighty fine for the Weimar Republic. Some guy named Adolf tapped quite successfully into public sentiment over that one.

 

[PoliticalNick]

Unf is quite corect. It is not any particular party that has any more ethics or morals. The system we have broken and they all operate within it so you can expect nothing less from any of them.

The system we use for finance in this country is what is truly fkd up. Fractional reserve banking and issuing interest bearing bonds to generate money is designed to create debt and keep generating debt.

For some reason we have accepted that in order to print money we need to issue a bond that pays interest insted of just printing the money. Both the bond or the money printed without the bond rely on the good faith credit of the country, difference is the bond has a debt obligation attached that is owed to someone else.

 

[Machjo]

The voters lack ethics too though. Should I vote for tax cuts in the face of debt, or spending increases in the face of debt, then I'm rewarding unethical promises on the part of politicians. The MPs truly are a reflection of the people. How many voters go to the polls voting based strictly on what's in it for them, with no sence of self-sacrifice or solidarity with the people and the nation?