Is The Canadian Tax Man Too Fat?

British Columbia-trekearth

British Columbia-trekearth

CBC August 12, 2014

Cited

'Canadians spend more on taxes than food, shelter: Fraser Institute'

'The average Canadian family spends more on taxes than on food, shelter and clothing combined,a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian public policy think-tank that focuses on free markets and government policies targeting consumers.

"If you asked people to name their household's biggest expense, many would likely say housing, but in reality, the average Canadian family spends more on taxes than all basic necessities including housing," the report's author Charles Lammam said of the paper, which tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2013.'

'In 2013, the study says the average Canadian family earned $77,381 and paid $32,369 in total taxes (or 41.8 per cent of income) compared to 36.1 per cent for food, shelter and clothing combined, the paper found. By comparison, in 1961, the average family earned approximately $5,000 and spent much more of its income on food, shelter and clothing (56.5 per cent), while $1,675 went to taxes (33.5 per cent).'

'But not everyone agrees with the Fraser Institute’s analysis.

"Those numbers are not directly comparable," said Peter Dungan, an economist at the Rotman School of Management. "First, in 1961 we did not have medicare," he said. The report's starting year baseline begins in 1961, the first year that the federal government started paying for a national health-care plan, first known as medicare and later brought under the umbrella of the Canada Health Act. Moving the onus of health-care spending from individuals onto the state has put a major cost on the backs of taxpayers along the way, which may be showing up in the Fraser Institute's report. According to recent numbers by consultancy Mercer, health-care spending was less than $100 per person in the early 1960s, 57 per cent of which was covered by government. But by 2010, per capita health spending had jumped to $5,614, of which 70 per cent was paid for by Ottawa. Other big ticket items such as the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security didn't even exist in 1961. Dungan points to higher education as another factor that needs to be taken into consideration. "At that point, many Canadians did not even finish high school, let alone go to university or college.… Part of what’s included in the increase in taxes, is an increase in educational taxes."'

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"The report is very misleading," said Iglika Ivanova, economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "It grossly overestimates the tax bill of the average Canadian family because of their methodology. They include things such as business taxes and import duties in the bill of the average family. "There is lots of research, mainly from the US, that business tax is largely paid by shareholders, little is paid by workers … the average Canadian family is not a large shareholder," said Ivanova. Lammam says it is fair to include business taxes because those taxes trickle down to Canadian families in the form of reduced wages, higher prices and lower investment returns. "Corporations are pieces of paper, but it's regular people that pay these taxes," he said in an interview with the CBC on Tuesday. 

The Fraser Institute's measure of an "average Canadian" is also flawed, says Ivanova. "We need to look at the distributional issues as to who is paying for what. Averages are becoming less and less meaningful. What does it mean when you have such large disparity? … We’ve eroded tax fairness. This is a much bigger concern for me versus the size of the tax bill."

'Rising tax burden

All in all, the report's total tax bill represents both visible and hidden taxes paid to the federal, provincial and local governments. This includes income taxes, payroll taxes, health taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes, vehicle taxes, import taxes, alcohol and tobacco taxes, and more. Since 1961, the average Canadian family's total tax bill has increased by 1,832 per cent, dwarfing increases in shelter costs (1,375 per cent), clothing (620 per cent) and food (546 per cent).'

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I am not a taxation expert. Theologically and philosophically I accept what the New Testament states in regard to paying the required tax (Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 20).

Romans 13:7 states to pay the State taxes and 1 Peter 2 notes to honor the State in verse 17.

The three Gospels command to give to God what is God's.

Theologically and philosophically, I reason that Western society and Canadian society has numerous spiritual and social problems that governments have demonstrated post-World War II they cannot adequately handle or solve. Even with the excessive amount of growth in taxation the last fifty plus years certain spiritual and social issues in society continue to exist.

There has been for example a breakdown of the family unit in Western and Canadian society.

I would therefore like to see less of my money go to city, provincial and federal taxation and more of it stay with me personally in order, that I as a private citizen that happens to be a moderate conservative Christian, and a theologian and philosopher, could decide where that money should be spent.

In other words, I have more faith in reasonable spending in not only myself, but also the average taxpayer than I do the Canadian bureaucracy, and although I am not stating that city, provincial and federal taxes should be ended altogether because obviously there are some services which in the current system need to be financed by governments by taxation such as for example medical, education, police, military and highways; I think the Canadian Tax Man is Too Fat...

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August 13, 2014: Princess Pug of Bulgaria in her summer villa in Surrey, British Columbia. Here she demonstrates dominion over the property by controlling the remote control over the television. Thank you to Sister Anjela for the photos and I hope you enjoyed the Lassie and Littlest Hobo reruns on Netflix.  But of course Scooby-Doo was the most popular.

Here Princess Pug has just attacked the stuffed animal which is her usual MO, as in attacking anything that seems like it might be alive. No one is safe at the residence as Deeaan has noted the Princess has no concept of social boundaries and if one enters her villa, you exist to be licked, jumped on, sat on, to become a pillow, and most importantly your food is 'borrowed' at the first opportunity.

The Princess Persian looks on in usual disgust attempting to hide out from Princess Pug that will violently intercept any human attempt to show affection to Princess Persian. Why is this reading like Game of Thrones?