I am expecting more American tax refugees after bo axes the Bush tax cuts. Hopefully more Canadian doctors will return home with obamacare. So I guess bo could be good for Canada after all. He's certainly not good for the US>
The Financial Times reports that the number of Americans giving up their citizenship to protect their families from America’s onerous worldwide tax system has jumped rapidly. Even relatively high-tax nations such as the United Kingdom are attractive compared to the class-warfare system that Obama is creating in the United States. I run into people like this quite often as part of my travels. They are intensely patriotic to America as a nation, but they have lots of scorn for the federal government. Statists are perfectly willing to forgive terrorists like William...
Yet another tax from dalton mcliar. His no tax promise a distant memory. More eco nonsense. It's just another tax.
We’re ages away from times when magic and wizardry, mumbling of spells and incantations held minds captive and populated the world with invisible, unknowable phantoms and forces. The only serious incantation I can recall from literature is over 400 years old. It comes in a late work of Shakespeare’s great rival, Christopher Marlowe. Faustus is desperate to make contact with Lucifer, and knows just how to go about it:
Faustus, begin thine incantations
And try if devils will obey thy hest …
Within this circle is Jehovah’s name,
Forward and backward anagrammatiz’d,
Th’ abbreviated names of holy saints,
Figures of every adjunct to the heavens,
And characters of...
Reducing taxes is always a good idea. The government feeds on taxes and grows to raise taxes even further. The government must be starved. This article is excerpted from Maxime's Winnipeg speech. Maxime needs to be in cabinet !! More here at Frontier site.
Abolish the corporate tax — only real people pay taxes
By Maxime Bernier
A famous American jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., wrote in 1927 that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. However much truth there may be in this statement, we’ve now gone way beyond this. Taxes today are the price we pay for having a big, fat and inefficient bureaucracy that tries to intervene in every aspect of our lives.
As long as we have taxes, however, we should make sure that they cause the least possible distortion in our economy.
Some...
As I said a few days ago, Maxime gave a speech on taxes in Winnipeg at the Frontier Centre. He makes a lot of sense, as he usually does. Less government spending and more private wealth creation are excellent ideas.
As long as we have taxes however, we should make sure that they cause the least possible distortion in our economy.
Some taxes are really dumb. The capital tax for example. Capital is the result of investments; it serves to increase our productive capacity; in a word, to become richer. We need more capital accumulation, not less. A tax on capital is self-defeating, in that it slows down capital accumulation, investment and economic growth. Fortunately, it has been abolished at the federal level. And our government provided an incentive in the 2007 budget for...
This should not be news to anyone. We pay too much tax and we get far too little value for those tens of billions of dollars. We need tax cuts. We need spending cuts. We need a majority Conservative government
You don’t need a study to tell you that taxes are gobbling up a huge portion of your salary.
Still, the Fraser Institute routinely reminds Canadians of their fiscal pain. In 2009, the think-tank notes, the average family paid 42% of its income — or almost $29,000 — in taxes.
That’s up dramatically from the 33.5% of income the average family paid in 1961 in total taxes (everything from income taxes to levies on tobacco, booze and gas).
Canadians should ask themselves if they’re getting value for all the money they send to government, says Fraser Institute economist...
A good piece from Lorrie Goldstein on the left's idea of good economic policy. They want more taxes, especially on those who are the most productive and successful members of society.
Let me give some suggestions to this think tank. let's have a flat tax. Or, let's get rid of income tax completely and just have a consumption tax.
Ever since the global economic collapse, the left has been pushing the idea Canadians have lost faith in the private sector and are ready to accept a greater role by government in their lives.
Part and parcel with this view is their contention Canadians are ready to pay higher taxes for good government services, as argued by Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in Wednesday’s Toronto Star.
In a column...
After stimulus spending and corporate bailouts for companies that will eventually disappear anyway, Canada is now saddled with a considerable deficit and must start looking at ways of reducing, containing or, hopefully, eliminating it, while continuing to grow its economy and create jobs. This is not an easy task, as it will require substantial cuts to government spending and a major overhaul of the tax system. Spending cuts will put the government of Stephen Harper in a predicament. Canada’s government programs are mostly geared to special interests that, even though they constitute a minority only, can make a lot of noise and cost the Conservatives dearly at the polls. But any anticipated screaming of such groups notwithstanding, cuts will have to be made, including to the tax...
Having celebrated my birthday, I figure I am entitled to draw up a special birthday wish list of things I’d like to find around my cake, gift-wrapped and all. A wish list, of course, is just that, a list, and there is no guarantee that people – particularly politicians – will actually give you the things you want for your special day, but hope shall flow eternal. Still, I will limit myself to just four wishes. Let’s revive Canada’s middle class and bring down that medieval tax burden Regular readers will know this pet peeve of mine: the average, middle-class, Canadian family loses 45% of its annual income to the taxman, spending more on the government’s opium than its own food, shelter and clothing. Anyone making anywhere from $40,000 to $60,000 a year – traditionally...
The Heritage Foundation has a great article on why overtaxing the wealthy is a bad idea. Seven Myths About Taxing the Richby Curtis S. DubayBackgrounder #2306President Barack Obama plans to raise the top two income tax rates from their current 33 and 35 percent levels to 36 and 39.6 percent, respectively. This would undo the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 ($200,000 for singles) and return the top rates to the levels of 1993 to 2000 during the Clinton Administration.In addition to these tax hikes, the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee, led by Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY), favors another tax to fund the government takeover of the health care system. The "Rangel plan" would levy a 1 percent surtax for married couples earning between...
With the current US deficit reaching US$1.8 trillion this year, even the most fervent supporter of small government and zero taxation must be wondering how much longer the country can continue going like this before taxes will have to be increased not just a tad, but substantially. John McCain recently called the deficit spending, which seems to have become the current administration’s character signature, “generational theft” – and he’s absolutely right. The way tax dollars are being blown on the most inane programs, such as “Cash for Clunkers”, is, indeed, nothing short of theft committed against future generations of Americans.......
Taxing the rich seems to appeal to lefties. The problem with that is that often causes such individuals to change their place of residence. You are welcome to come to Canada! Fortunately looks like the senate will balk at this theft by tax.July 15 (Bloomberg) -- House Democrats plan to fund the broadest U.S. health-care expansion in four decades by increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans, imposing a surtax of 5.4 percent on couples with more than $1 million in income.The legislation unveiled yesterday would place additional taxes on households with more than $350,000 a year in income and calls for further increases if the measure doesn’t hit a target for cost savings. The provisions are intended to raise $544 billion over 10 years....
I am happy that HM PM Harper thinks that taxes are intrinsically bad. They are. I do see a need for some aspects of the state so I grudgingly accept some taxes. However the less tax the better. the grits and the other lefties love taxes. They love the control it gives them over the populace and they think they know how to spend our money better than we do. leftie simpson has never met a tax he didn't like except for the GST and now he doesn't want to cut that. The Reverend Jeffrey Simpson, keeper of The Globe and Mail’s firm grasp on conventional gospel, the Al Sharpton of Canadian Liberalism, an old fogie from the day he began writing his Globe column in 1949, knee-jerk anti-Conservative and now fire-and-brimstone preacher of climate doom, champion of carbon controls and higher...
I don't like the massive overspending by HM Government. I don't think it is effective or necessary. In Canadian politics the opposition matters. One of the reason pseudo chretien was more fiscally conservative was the principle opposition of the Reform Party. In this environment the opposition in a minority parliament wants ever more spending, while at the same time complaining about the deficit. The Tories are pushing back a little. Witness the EI position of HM PM Harper. We need people on the right pushing the government back to fiscal conservatism to counteract the ravenous oppositions calls for ever more spending. As I have written before government is an addiction. One of the reasons I want a flat tax and tax cuts is to cut the ability of government, any government to undertake this...
Alberta finance minister Iris Evans recently spoke at a conference in Toronto, where she let it slip that raising children properly requires one stay-at-home parent. The opposition parties back on her home turf were quick to denounce her and demand an apology for supposedly berating as bad parents any family where both parents work. There was no reason to apologize for her personal views on the subject, which are not wrong at all, as every expert in parenting, education, psychology, etc. can confirm. For decades, the same experts have blamed the gang culture among African-American teenagers on absentee fathers and......
Yours truly, in today’s Calgary Herald: Nothing government does to fix CPP will address the underlying problem: Canadians aren't saving enough for retirement. Who could blame them? The middle class has been destroyed, with the average family losing 45 per cent of its annual income to taxes. Since taxes account for more than a family's spending on food, clothing and shelter, there isn't much money left to save after paying for the basic necessities. Canadians also pay more for everything than our neighbours to the south. Even when the Canadian and U. S. dollars were at par not too long......
Jim, You must be extremely busy blowing out the 50 billion candles on your budget cake right now, but bear with me and take the time to read my letter. Damn it, Jim, I’m a writer and translator, not an economist, but I know a foul deal when I see one. I know, you think your job as finance minister is a thankless task. No one appreciates the hard work you’ve put it into your budgets and managing the federal government’s finances. All you ever get is criticism, from your own people and the opposition. Gee, maybe this has something......
There’s been a lot of debate on the current and future state of Canadians’ pension savings and the government’s own Canada Pension Plan (CPP). Various ideas have been bandied about, with both federal and provincial governments trying to figure out what to do. In Ontario, two-thirds of people don’t have any pension savings; in Alberta, the number is equally discouraging. Under a new proposal, people would be able to start collecting CPP payments at 60 while continuing working, instead of having to quit their jobs for at least two months. But nothing government does to make CPP more flexible will......
...has unintended consequences. obamessiah and many US governirs want to even more heavily tax the rich. I doubt that will work. They will move and they have done just taht in the past. even do gooders like Bono have moved based on tax advantage. If things get really bad in obamessiah's America, I suspect we will see tax refugees to places like Alberta, Saketchewan and BC! The phenomenon is clearly documented in American states. People move from high tax states to lower tax states.Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no...
A good editorial in the Gazette. Taxes are too high! Flat Tax! Flat Tax! Flat Tax!Taxes are now the biggest single item in the average Canadian family's budget, the Fraser Institute calculated last month: In 1961, the average Canadian family earned $5,000 and paid $1,675 in total taxes, or 33.5 per cent of income. In 2008, the average family earned $71,764 and paid total taxes of $31,535, which is 43.9 per cent of that income.The breakdown reveals how thoroughly governments find ways to tax us: Of that $31,535 family tax hit, $10,293 is for income tax. Then there are social security, medical and health taxes totalling $6,403; sales taxes of $4,542; profits tax on capital gains and the like, $3,302; property taxes of $2,787; excise taxes on tobacco, alcohol, amusement, etc., for $1,782;...
This is somewhat bad news for Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, but excellent news for the future of all Canadian taxpayers: A new poll suggests Michael Ignatieff's musings about potential tax increases could hurt his efforts to build Liberal support across the country -- except in Quebec. The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey indicates that 30 per cent of respondents nationwide are less likely to vote Liberal in the next election as a result of the party leader's reflections on taxes last week; only 16 per cent are more likely to support the Grits. The damage was most pronounced in Atlantic Canada......
As a follow-up to my recent post, see my letter on the subject in today's Calgary Herald: Glad to see that our excessive tax burden is finally discussed. I've been typing my fingers to the bone writing on my blog about this report's numbers for months. When families lose 45 per cent of their annual income to taxes, it stands to reason that the tax burden jeopardizes their ability to pay for the basic necessities of life, which would make it a violation of basic human rights. When Canadians pay more to the taxman than to their landlords, grocers, etc.,......
The following column in Saturday's Calgary Herald bears way too many eerie similarities with the things I've been saying here to be merely coincidental. I think Nigel Hannaford owes me some credit for putting his column together for him. But I am glad that these facts are now also in print in a major newspaper. Not that it will make any difference to our pretend conservative PM Stephen Harper, who, according to one conservative, has betrayed and "f***ed" the conservative movement, but maybe if more people are made aware of the tax burden on their shoulders, which is so excessive......
Our American friends are yet again showing us here in Canada the kind of civic participation that we're lacking up here so much. Well, it's not true that Canadians can never be engaged enough to protest or demonstrate for something, but the causes they usually stand up for are not worth anyone's time (e.g., anti-globalization, "man-made global warming", anti-poverty vandals who destroy public and private property, etc. – in short, all unworthy leftist causes). Wednesday's deadline for filing income tax returns offered some Americans a timely excuse to vent their frustrations as demonstrators attended more than 750 Tax Day tea......
Ignatieff flip-flops incessantly on taxationWho would have thought Michael Ignatieff is a fan of the Sugar Hill Gang? Or at least the Black Eyed Peas.When it comes to taxation, Ignatieff has been all about the "flip flip flip" and the "flop flop flop" as he keeps he party's position on taxation "movin' non non non stop".All this for the political benefit of the LPC.Speaking in Ottawa today, the Liberal leader tried to undo some damage he did to himself yesterday when he mused about raising taxes.“We will have to raise taxes,” Ignatieff mused during a stop in Cambridge, Ontario. “I am not going to load a deficit onto your children or mine.”Today, Ignatieff "clarified" his remarks by noting that his party would do everything it could to avoid raising taxes.“I was asked a...
Stephen Taylor argues in one of his recent posts that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff could be the answer to Conservatives' prayers: With Mr. Ignatieff, we know that while times are tough, he'd heap on increased government burden. At least with Mr. Dion, we would have known where it was coming from and how to brace ourselves. Terrible Liberal fiscal policy makes for good Conservative electoral prospects. Terrible and ambiguous Liberal fiscal policy makes for great Conservative electoral prospects. Conservatives are looking forward to a Liberal party led by the professor on loan from Massachusetts. They're anticipating the Canadian reaction of......
Do you think you're suffering as a result of the recession? I am sure many of you do. As a matter of fact, we're all suffering in one way or another. But that doesn't change the fact that Canadians live in a perpetual recessionary state. Why? Because of our Big Government with its excessive tax burden. Remember what was revealed several months ago: 45% of the average Canadian family's annual income is eaten up by taxes, making income taxes the number one expense item for Canadian families – Canadians spend more on taxes than on their basic necessities of life,......
Not too long ago, Canadians came very close to being subjected to a communist wealth-redistribution scheme – former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's Green Shift. Communism died a slow and painful death in 1989, but some people have not caught on yet that if there is one ideology that can ruin this world, it's communism (which is why it's dead). There are, of course, subtle and not-so-subtle variations on the same old and tired concept. Some call it socialism or social fairness, but at the end of the day, it all boils down to the same thing: communism, or the art......