TENS - Taxed Enough Nova Scotians

[JLM]

As to that, that is a myth propagated by conservatives, that we pay high taxes here in Canada. We may pay slightly higher taxes than in USA (even here, the difference is not huge, contrary to popular belief. And the comparison there is skewed, seeing that they pay separate social security tax, medical insurance etc.). However, our taxes are quite comparable with Europe, Australia, New Zealand etc, and indeed compare quite favorably with that in many developed countries.

Day 3

I just took a glance at the attachment- it's either Bullsh*t or it incomplete. For individuals it shows 15-29%. Yeah, right. You and I both know that once our income is over about $50,000 we are into the 41% Fed. tax category + substantial Prov. tax and that just covers income. On top of that we have property taxes, P.S.t. H.S.T., tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, real estate sales taxes, gasoline taxes..............Need I go on?

 

[TenPenny]

That is a huge bonanza for the upper middle class and the rich, the two of us together can shelter 42,000 $ every year in a tax free account.

You mean 'tax deferred', I hope.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I just took a glance at the attachment- it's either Bullsh*t or it incomplete. For individuals it shows 15-29%. Yeah, right. You and I both know that once our income is over about $50,000 we are into the 41% Fed. tax category + substantial Prov. tax and that just covers income. On top of that we have property taxes, P.S.t. H.S.T., tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, real estate sales taxes, gasoline taxes..............Need I go on?

I see, since the numbers don’t agree with your preconceived notions, they are bull****. Talk about a closed mind.

As to your claim of 41% federal taxes, I looked at 2008 tax return of me and my wife, we are both high earners.

The ratio of taxes payable to total income (line 150 in the tax form) was 17%. If one looks at the net income (after RRSP and all the other deductions, line 236), the ratio was 27.8%, a far cry from your 41%. And this includes the federal tax, provincial tax and CPP contributions for both the employee and the employer. And we are high earners, I assume somebody earning 50 or 60,000, the ratio would be a lot less.

As I said, high taxes are a myth propagated by the conservatives. We are no different than Europe or Australia/New Zealand. In fact we compare quite favorably with many of them.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

You mean 'tax deferred', I hope.

Certainly tax deferred, TenPenny. But taxes will be differed for many years to come. When time comes to collapse the RRSP, it can always be rolled over into a RRIF. And when it comes to withdrawing money from the RRIF, why there are also ways to minimize the tax paid there.

 

[JLM]

I see, since the numbers don’t agree with your preconceived notions, they are bull****. Talk about a closed mind.

.

Sorry the 41% was Fed + Prov. combined.

 

[atlanticaparty]

So, are you trying to pretend that the 'Atlantica Party' has nothing to do with the Atlantica concept that was being discussed at all the meetings last year and the year before?

That's a stretch.

Nothing what so ever. AP has been around for a few years, we picked the name before the Atlantica concept thing came along. We have an Atlantica Hotel here in Halifax, does that mean it is it is run by AIMS?

Still waiting for the names of the groups you say we 'front' for ...

 

[TenPenny]

Certainly tax deferred, TenPenny. But taxes will be differed for many years to come. When time comes to collapse the RRSP, it can always be rolled over into a RRIF. And when it comes to withdrawing money from the RRIF, why there are also ways to minimize the tax paid there.

Of course there are, but 'tax free' is not the same as 'tax deferred'.

 

[ironsides]

I see, since the numbers don’t agree with your preconceived notions, they are bull****. Talk about a closed mind.

As to your claim of 41% federal taxes, I looked at 2008 tax return of me and my wife, we are both high earners.

The ratio of taxes payable to total income (line 150 in the tax form) was 17%. If one looks at the net income (after RRSP and all the other deductions, line 236), the ratio was 27.8%, a far cry from your 41%. And this includes the federal tax, provincial tax and CPP contributions for both the employee and the employer. And we are high earners, I assume somebody earning 50 or 60,000, the ratio would be a lot less.

As I said, high taxes are a myth propagated by the conservatives. We are no different than Europe or Australia/New Zealand. In fact we compare quite favorably with many of them.

You have to stop trying to compare yourself to Europe, Australia and New Zealand. They are examples of countries who pay very high taxes. You live in a land of taxes, not that we don't, but were not anywhere taxed as high as you are. I does not matter who you pay your taxes to, it all comes out of your pocket. (20% Fed 21% Provincial) or any combination it actually is. There is no reason for Provincial taxes to be so high, most of what they pay for should come from the federal gov.. In the U.S. our state taxes are much lower than federal, and in a couple of states are non-existent.
Lets not go into all the freebies you may get like health care and education. It is not free, you do pay for it,

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Sorry the 41% was Fed + Prov. combined.

Makes no difference, JLM (I figured that is what you meant), my post #23 still applies.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I does not matter who you pay your taxes to, it all comes out of your pocket. (20% Fed 21% Provincial) or any combination it actually is. There is no reason for Provincial taxes to be so high, most of what they pay for should come from the federal gov..

You have your information wrong, ironsides, provincial taxes are nowhere near as high, they are much lower than federal taxes, and not higher as you seem to think.

And comparison between Canada and USA is difficult. You have to pay for Social Security, medical insurance on top of your taxes. In many big cities such as New York, there a substantial city tax, on top of federal and state taxes.

In many areas in USA, public schools are of appallingly low quality, one almost has to send one’s kids to private schools. Over most of Canada, quality of public schools is quite good, there is no need to send one’s kids to private schools and pay the exorbitant fees. Toll roads are quite common in USA, they are practically non existent in Canada.

But there have been some detailed comparisons and they have come to conclusion that taking all things into account, taxes in USA are only marginally lower than those in Canada, there is not a substantial difference.

 

[JLM]

Makes no difference, JLM (I figured that is what you meant), my post #23 still applies.

It's your post #17 and the attachment that is the problem, the attachment is utter B.S. -as for comparisons with other countries they mean very little. What I am interested in is the ratio between total income and total taxes and that is certainly not in the ballpark of 15-29%. I'm willing to bet for a person earning $50,000 it is more like 45-55%.

 

[atlanticaparty]

Regarding taxes and income you are leaving out another consideration. Are you getting good value for what you pay for? If you pay high taxes and get high quality services in return versus pay high taxes and get poor services are two very different outcomes. The latter is the case here in NS, we pay pretty much the highest taxes but our services are near the bottom in term of quality.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

It's your post #17 and the attachment that is the problem, the attachment is utter B.S. -as for comparisons with other countries they mean very little. What I am interested in is the ratio between total income and total taxes and that is certainly not in the ballpark of 15-29%. I'm willing to bet for a person earning $50,000 it is more like 45-55%.

Evidently you missed my post #23, JLM (even though I pointed it out to you). Let me reproduce part of it.

As to your claim of 41% federal taxes, I looked at 2008 tax return of me and my wife, we are both high earners.

The ratio of taxes payable to total income (line 150 in the tax form) was 17%. If one looks at the net income (after RRSP and all the other deductions, line 236), the ratio was 27.8%, a far cry from your 41%. And this includes the federal tax, provincial tax and CPP contributions for both the employee and the employer. And we are high earners, I assume somebody earning 50 or 60,000, the ratio would be a lot less..

So if you are paying 45 to 55 % of your income in taxes, you are paying way too much, much more than you have to. My suggestion to you a get a good tax accountant.

If in our case taxes are 17 to 27 % of the income, I expect most people pay a lot less than that.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Here is another table, this time covering only the developed counties. As can be seen, again Canada compares very favorably with other countries.

Taxation in Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[AnnaG]

We could have another thread called TaCs: Taxed-enough Canadians.
If we could only find a government that's actually efficient, we could actually get our money's worth.

 

[JLM]

Evidently you missed my post #23, JLM (even though I pointed it out to you). Let me reproduce part of it.



So if you are paying 45 to 55 % of your income in taxes, you are paying way too much, much more than you have to. My suggestion to you a get a good tax accountant.

If in our case taxes are 17 to 27 % of the income, I expect most people pay a lot less than that.

We are talking oranges and apples- You are talking about your income tax form, I'm talking about gasoline tax, G.S.T. P.S.T. Alcohol tax, property taxes, real estate sales taxes, environment taxes we pay on everything from tires and batteries, oil paint and pop bottles ON TOP of income tax. I may be a little out of date on the income tax as I know there has been revisions downward since our illustrious Premier took office and our illustrious P.M. took office but several years ago when I trying to get the max. into R.R.S.P.s that money was taxed at 42%. That's all I'm saying. Not trying to argue.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

We are talking oranges and apples- You are talking about your income tax form, I'm talking about gasoline tax, G.S.T. P.S.T. Alcohol tax, property taxes, real estate sales taxes, environment taxes we pay on everything from tires and batteries, oil paint and pop bottles ON TOP of income tax. I may be a little out of date on the income tax as I know there has been revisions downward since our illustrious Premier took office and our illustrious P.M. took office but several years ago when I trying to get the max. into R.R.S.P.s that money was taxed at 42%. That's all I'm saying. Not trying to argue.

I don’t know when you were taxed at 42%, JLM. However, tax rates haven’t changed all that much in recent years, they may have come down a little bit, but certainly they haven’t come down substantially.

As to GST and PST, again comparison is difficult, different counties have different taxation methods. Comparison here is even more difficult than comparing income taxes. However, I do remember reading somewhere that in Britain, VAT (which takes place of our GST and PST) is 17%, greater than our GST and PST combined. Most European nations have similar VAT.

But they do one smart thing in Europe; there the VAT is rolled into the price, so the customer doesn’t see it separately. Thus, if the car has a sticker price of 10,000 £, the customer pays 10,000 £, and not 11,700 £. The way they do it in Canada, the customer sees the tax added to the price, knows how much tax he is paying and it simply leads to aggravation.

Incidentally, how much of your income do you pay as income tax? I bet it is a lot less than 27% (which is what we pay).

 

[JLM]

We could have another thread called TaCs: Taxed-enough Canadians.
If we could only find a government that's actually efficient, we could actually get our money's worth.

Yep, but you may want to get S.J. to sign off on it first.

 

[JLM]

I don’t know when you were taxed at 42%, JLM. However, tax rates haven’t changed all that much in recent years, they may have come down a little bit, but certainly they haven’t come down substantially.

As to GST and PST, again comparison is difficult, different counties have different taxation methods. Comparison here is even more difficult than comparing income taxes. However, I do remember reading somewhere that in Britain, VAT (which takes place of our GST and PST) is 17%, greater than our GST and PST combined. Most European nations have similar VAT.

But they do one smart thing in Europe; there the VAT is rolled into the price, so the customer doesn’t see it separately. Thus, if the car has a sticker price of 10,000 £, the customer pays 10,000 £, and not 11,700 £. The way they do it in Canada, the customer sees the tax added to the price, knows how much tax he is paying and it simply leads to aggravation.

Incidentally, how much of your income do you pay as income tax? I bet it is a lot less than 27% (which is what we pay).

Well that's the rate it was -approx. 26% and 16% on the third tier up from the bottom, there is no use arguing about it. That would have been in the late 70s - mid 80s.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Well that's the rate it was -approx. 26% and 16% on the third tier up from the bottom, there is no use arguing about it. That would have been in the late 70s - mid 80s.

Late 70s - mid 80s? I wasn't even in the country at that time, we returned to Canada in 1986.