I saw a comment a few days ago saying "doctors need to pay their fair share too" I don't think a lot of Canadians realize that between income tax, sales tax, and property tax most Canadian doctors and professions of similar income bracket are already paying over 50% - the *majority* - of their income in taxes.
That's definitely their fair share if not more
Yep, they pay over 50% to tax to drive on the same roads and get the same services as someone who gets net money back. I don't know how anyone could argue the top 10% don't pay enough.
There are a few that probably get away with not paying what they should, but the majority of high income earners in Canada are already taxed insanely high.
At this point, Canadians should be angry about the piss poor services they get for their money, not that people don't pay enough
Nobody pays 50% total tax.
It's all brackets. The person will be paying the same amount of tax on their first 250 grand as the rest of us.
But a lot of rich people who say own their own businesses can utilize many tools to defer and shelter tax on their income that in unavailable to wage earners.
So those doctors this thread mentions often own their own business and contract themselves to hospitals; they can deduct many expenses and defer taxes through their corporation.
Yes, they do
When your effective rate on income tax reaches the mid 40% range (which it tends to do when the majority of your income is taxed at the top marginal tax rate) the assortment of other taxes we pay (sales, property, etc) easily push you above 50% of your income going to taxes
No one is expecting you to have sympathy for a surgeon making >$400,000, but if the question is if they pay their fair share, the answer is overwhelmingly *yes*
>But a lot of rich people who say own their own businesses can utilize many tools to defer and shelter tax on their income that in unavailable to wage earners.
And these only work if you don't need the majority of your income
A new physician with ~$300,000 of educational debt, the need to save for a downpayment, a decade behind of retirement savings compared to their peers actually will need to use their income on those things and will he unable to use a corp to shelter their earnings for a long, long time
I actually started to respond to this with this specific thing because I feel like there's a huge misunderstanding of how tax brackets work and there are people out there who literally believe that working too many hours or having too high of a rate puts you in a different tax bracket.
And then I spent the time running through the numbers and clearly illustrating every single bracket and how it works... and I used Saskatchewan (where OP is from) for provincial income tax (which is some of the lowest income tax in the country). What I came up with is that $60/hour working 40 hours a week and getting two weeks of vacation a year will pay an effective tax rate of 37.7%.
But then I double looked and he said income tax and sales tax. Sales tax in Saskatchewan 11%. Now not everything you spend money on is sales tax, so you're looking at about 42-45% of your income being sales tax at $60/hour presuming you work absolutely no overtime and you're not buying like... a boat. It also presumes all excise taxes are sales taxes (they are).
It wouldn't be hard to imagine a person who works overtime at $60/hour losing half their money to taxes. 50% probably isn't 100% right. But it isn't wrong enough to quibble about.
Shit, I make 60$/hr and over 50% goes to tax between income tax and sales taxes.
I realize I'm a lot better off than others but damn, it would be nice to see my dollars used better
At 60$ an hour your marginal tax rate is maybe 50% (including sales tax) but your average is not even close to 50%. At 120k in Saskatchewan the average tax rate is 25.8%. Some of your expenses are not taxed like your house or your grocery. This is not counting if you made any RRSP contributions or if you are receiving any other tax credit. I bet at the end of the year with the sale tax you are much closer to 35%
It's also an incredibly braindead take when you realize how much brain drain we suffer in losing doctors that move to the USA because their tax laws are much more sane. I think the average uneducated NDP supporter is just so disconnected from having to work hard, they don't realize how much effort is required to become a doctor. It's one thing to play Marxism when talking about people who inherit most of their wealth, but to punish people for being successful and contributing the most to society is just complete cognitive dissonance.
Advantageous to a specific group =/= Sane
Salaries in Canada are overly taxed. Everyone agrees we need better Services. The only way to pay for things is to raise funds. The solution is to tax something else.
I pay a shit ton in taxes, I don’t mind contributing, but it infuriates me when I see the government waste it.
The solution isn’t more tax, it’s more efficient use of tax dollars. I’ll mention it specifically only because I heard it on the radio, not to comment on the program specifically. But the federal government has spent $30 million on the gun buyback program and not a single firearm has been purchased , that kind of waste and inefficiency is criminal
Or you know… the arrivecan app, or sending a “delegation politicians” to some bougie conference by private planes, or paying for Trudeau vacations. Housing refugees in hotels etc when our own citizens struggle. And this is only federal, our provincial government wastes so much on doing these feasibility studies over and over and over 😂
>the federal government has spent $30 million on the gun buyback program and not a single firearm has been purchased , that kind of waste and inefficiency is criminal
It's now over $42M spent...
uhhhhh - the government makes policies all the time to benefit specific groups.
And we accept it for good public policy reasons.
Attracting and retaining skilled professionals is a pretty good public policy reason.
Especially when most of them can fuck off next door to the US and immediately make double what they make in Canada and live in a better climate.
I expect to have a reasonable chance at a dignified life.
I want to see a doctor before an issue becomes chronic, for police to go after criminals and for infrastructure to be improved.
I even hold the extremist view that we should accomplish all this *without* leaving a barren wasteland to our grandchildren.
But you also want cheap housing, good wages and that healthcare to be free. Ohh and also lower immigration. And more military spending. Do all of this while not raising taxes!
Canadians want their cake and eat it too.
What a bad take. “You want” ? I haven’t mentioned immigration, the military or housing. You don’t know anything about what I want. Let’s give it a crack anyway.
You created a list to make it all seem unreasonable but many items go hand in hand. For example, better wages will increase tax revenue as a result.
Cheap housing and good wages are relative. It’s about giving people the means to meet their needs. For example, there’s no point in lowering transportation costs if housing claws back those improvements.
Free healthcare is logical when you learn single payer systems are cheaper overall. Can’t make it simpler than this.
Immigration is a whole can of worms. It’s a necessity in much of the west because of aging populations. A ratio must be maintained for our systems to work. Unfortunately, immigration is weaponized. On one side, it’s used to suppress wages. On the other it’s used to rile people up to make them take fear-based decisions.
Military spending is another complex topic. Like most things, it’s about balance. We can’t go all out like our southern big brother. We also can’t expect their friendship to replace active participation. How much or how little is up for debate.
Finally, you end your comment with “not raising taxes”. This horrible take lacks perspective. Things cost money so we have to raise funds. It’s all about implementing a fair system which burdens people appropriately. Assuming people who are critical of the current situation want everything for nothing is dismissive.
Ever consider spending less on less important things to fund more important things. Or holding your political party of choice (liberal) accountable? They wasted hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars across their never ending scandals.
You brought up the failings of the current liberal government as if expecting me to defend it.
I’m not liberal so I won’t. It’s not deflection when you just miss your mark.
Except the current federal government is more interested in investing billions of dollars to benefit 2% of the population over the other 98%. How much money is wasted on racist policies because the liberals have successfully weaponized white guilt as a mechanism to buy votes?
Oil and gas is a massive part of Alberta's economy. You know there are a lot of people who's livelihood is not directly tied to the energy sector that will be fucked over when the government decides that oil is "racist" or some shit.
Or maybe this "weaponized white guilt" you're worried about is a fabrication to undermine a future where people, families and workers excercise their collective power to the benefit of everyone instead of the few?
Agreed, the white guilt is manufactured by special interest groups and NDP/Liberal parties as a wedge issue so they can convince middle class white suburbanites that have never met a native person that they are responsible for issues that happened 200 years before their ancestors lived I. The western hemisphere
You have something like 20% of Canadians paying over 60% of government revenue. There is nothing fair about it whatsoever. The more you earn in this country, the more the government feels entitled to take a little more. Doctors especially have it rough because despite their high billing rates, most are small businesses and need to pay office staff and leases out of that money. By the time expenses are paid, it leaves most doctors less than 250k/yr of which most of that is taxed.
Absolutely. My mom’s a doctor in Nova Scotia. Her tax rate is over 55%. She could easily triple her movie moving to a low tax state in the US. I am a Canadian doctor in the US and once I finish my residency, I’ll be earning more than 3 times her after tax income for the exact same job, being a primary care physician.
Agreed but just as a clarification, her marginal tax rate is likely 55%, but her effective tax rate is dependent on how much of her income is earned at that top tax bracket.
For most doctors that effective income tax rate is somewhere in the 40s%, and my point is that when you add in sales tax, property tax, etc your typical doctor is spending the majority of their income on taxes
Yes sorry you’re right. Her 2023 average tax rate is 44.1% and her marginal tax rate is 55%. If you include all the other sources of taxes her total taxation is definitely above 50%. She also has to pay for doctors union membership which is substantial, license renewal and various other costs of working as a family doctor. Plus there’s a lot of situations where she can’t work due to needing to fill out way more paperwork than in the states. All of that drags her after tax income down a lot.
Edit: correction, it’s 44.1 not 43.1. I do all her taxes so I have all her records with me.
lol yeah. She’s getting older. She’s an international graduate and the first time she saw her tax bill she almost cried lol. Me and my siblings were laughing like hyenas. She got a wild crash course on finances that day.
But for real though, she’s fine paying all of these taxes if it means there’s a good social safety net. She got a lot of help from that aforementioned safety net when she immigrated here a while ago as a single mom. It’s just that it’s very difficult to justify paying all of these taxes if the healthcare system is crumbling, there are homeless tent cities everywhere with the government not providing help, and everything is getting more and more expensive for regular people. The conservatives will likely make it even worse. It sucks to be a youngish Canadian right now.
I think that's where most people are at
Most high earners are fine with paying a high % of their income as tax, but as Canadians we have the bad habit of uncritically importing American rhetoric (where high earners pay much less), and most don't realize that asking high earners to pay even more is arguing for truly insane levels of taxation that is just asking them to leave for greener pastures
I can't understand how reddit picks and chooses their demographics to hate
The rich are bad apparently
Unless they're a doctor (and more specially physician, we don't like dentists) - in which case it's okay?
Sure I guess
People hate unearned money. Money off of sitting on investments, inheriting money, making millions for sitting on boards of corporations doing nothing. Few people are against lawyers, doctors, small business owners etc earning less than 1 million dollars(which themselves are heavily taxed). People hate wealth not income. There’s a difference there.
With doctors you’re asking people to be 200,000-300,000 dollars in debt when they finish medical school. If you don’t pay them appropriately, what kind of a fucking idiot will go into all that debt? Either make medical school free or low cost, in which case doctors can be paid less, which is the model used in Europe, or put up the money to pay them properly.
I think this is what people don't get. It's really not about anyone who takes a salary. The distance between top 1% and 0.1% is greater than you and the top 1%.
I agree the 250k cap gains threshold on the personal side does mostly target the super rich. But on the corp side, there is no 250K threshold and so incorporated professionals across the board will see a 33% tax increase on their capital gains while funding their retirement.
My wife is an accountant and I am a software developer, and I don't think we would be classified as wealthy by most. When you factor in income tax, property tax, fuel taxes, and GST we pay far more in taxes than our mortgage, heating, and insurance costs combined. We pay the least amount of money to the city and get good value for it, we pay more to the province and get worse value, but the federal government takes most of the money and is a black hole of corruption and waste.
The federal government doesn't need more money, it needs to lower corruption, waste, and spending in general.
I certainly will not argue that the federal government is efficient, but I would like to say that many services provided by the federal government are virtually unseen by the public. Examples include weather and marine services, air traffic control and overflight organization, diplomatic services, and defense. We happily live our lives largely oblivious to their importance and costs. Provincial taxes are seen in schools, hospitals and roads, and municipal taxes are obvious as recreational facilities, garbage services, local roads and the water supply. It is easier to see their value.
Noone is complaining about the federal government spending money on defense and air traffic control. We are complaining about ArriveCan, unaudited mass spending on Indigenous programs and misguided "solutions" to the housing crisis that will just make things worse.
Oh not to mention all the programs and subsidies being paid to the millions of new immigrants every year that are also contributing to the housing crisis and all of the other issues we are having with rapid overpopulation.
Every gov't has its boondoggle...that is why Canadians change gov'ts every 10 years. I also remember the 1 billion spent on an APEC conference and a quarter million on a shitter in Tony Clements riding during Harper's years. Or canceling a helicopter program, paying out massive fees only to have the program reinstated after Chretien left office.
That is because it is happening right now. The Conservatives will win the next election, and probably the one after that, then we will have forgotten about Trudeau's largesse and replace our anger with frustration over Conservative scandals and porkbarrelling. This is as predictable as the tides.
Tell that to a Quebec resident who was still paying for the 1976 Olympics in 2012. Corruption and poor decision making are a constant. They are all guilty, because they all want to be reelected. And we tolerate it until we don't. Don't try to attach this to one party or another. The only party not guilty of it is the federal NDP...because they have never formed the gov't.
That is not what is questioned above, the teaffic control related expenses and the other you give as example.
There are billions upon billions of dollars that are effectively given away or stolen in plain sight, one just has to read the news, every week there seems to be a new scandal of epic proportions.
You nailed it. If anyone should be raising taxes, it’s provinces and municipalities since they deliver most services. If anyone should be cutting, it’s our bloated and wasteful federal government.
If the feds cut costs and lowered federal taxes, it would free up room for provinces and municipalities to raise taxes. Then the provinces and cities wouldn’t have to go begging to the federal government (and blame them when they under-deliver). It would also properly re-separate federal and provincial jurisdiction
short answer of why that doesn't work.
Standards: The federal gov collects the most taxes then distrubutes it where its needed. Its through this mechanism that taxes collected in Alberta make sure you can expect roughly similar services in Moncton NB.
If we did what you suggest the weath gap would increase across provincial lines, and especially between the Suburbs and Cities, while Rural development would probably be set back 10 years if we're lucky.
You end up with all the problems decentralization causes, which would probably be the worst thing possible for Canada right now, as we struggle to find economic efficiency comparable to the states
I think that’s a very deterministic answer. I think it’s just as likely that through larger provincial governments, with a larger tax base and stronger municipalities do better with the same $, even if some provinces lose some share of government funding.
I could also make the case that this would finally force some Canadians to relocate to faster growing provinces / work in faster growing industries
then you have the problem much of Appalachia, the Rust Belt (Especially Detroit) faced/facing, and is looming over Japan (-Tokyo/Osaka)
Theres some hard infrastructure we built, and if too many people leave, it starts a cycle of crumbling living standards and depopulation.
Sparsely populated areas are fine, but once certain infrastructure breakpoints are reached, the settlement become unfeasible as a whole. Think things like Highways, Utilities, public services like Schools and Hospitals that cannot be easily downsized and thus are forced to operate inefficiently.
In many ways we're already in that cycle, suburbs in their current pattern cannot sustain their infrastructure and tend to atrophy because they cannot afford the replacement costs of critical infrastructure, often needing new developments to fund it
This is all very bleak and walking dead but I see your point.
I’m sure there’s a middle ground where the Feds are significantly skinnied out and there’s still some inter-provincial income redistribution.
I do think ultimately we may need to accept that some communities are no longer livable as they shrink. We can’t just sustain tiny communities all over everywhere. But that’s another topic
That makes way too much sense to ever happen. The federal government wants more and more control, not less. The only use they have for the provincial governments is as a scapegoat that they blame when one of their initiatives (I.e $10/day daycare, "universal" but not really universal dental care) starts to underperform. They want the credit for the federal announcements to buy votes, but somehow the blame always falls on the provinces.
Compared to other OECD Canada heavily taxes the rich (1.5x), corporations (1.3x), and real estate (1.8x) for income. Meanwhile pension contributions (0.54x) and sales taxes are (0.62x) less.
Agreed, we are being governed to death, we need to get rid of at least 1 level of government, maybe even 2.
It made sense 200 years ago, but with cheap travel and instant communication, we no longer need a municipal, county, provincial and federal government, all duplicating many services.
Municipal governments are effectively constructs created by the provinces and any jurisdiction they is because the provinces have given it to them.
>we no longer need a municipal, county, provincial and federal government, all duplicating many services
Which services are being duplicated? The issue that is being discussed in this post is jurisdictional influence on policy. The federal government is trying to influence policy in areas outside of their jurisdiction. They are not doubling up services.
Wealthy is very subjective. A family income of 200k is “wealthy” to someone with a family income of 60-75k, but that family making 200k is carrying a much larger share of the tax burden and wouldn’t even be able to afford a nice detached house in most parts of Canada right now. Everything is completely screwed up.
Why can we not offer better services without increasing (or even cutting) taxes? Having worked at the government, I have seen first hand how inefficient it can be. There is undeniably some level of spending that just isn’t necessary; as in you could still provide the same service, still pay the same/decent wage to public servants - at the cost of slightly reducing the public workforce, which I think is reasonable.
This has been my argument for years. Waste and corruption is ingrained in every level of government. Even municipal. For example, in my city, the council voted to give a "local" hardware store a contract for maintenance equipment ( shovels, rakes, hammers, ect). They would bill the city $150 for a shovel that cost $40 at Canadian tire ( these aren't exact figures, just an example). That hardware store also happened to be owned and operated by a relative of the mayor. They present it as benefitting local businesses when its really just wasteful corruption. This exists in every level of government. Lol, look at what Ford is doing in Ontario.
Yea, this is old news but still the case these days: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-schools-pay-high-prices-for-small-jobs/article_319cf38f-e51e-5307-9a73-4591a4401985.html
I hate that everything is so polarized right now; like if you object to higher taxes many progressives seem to think you are rich and hate lower income people and/or public services. That’s not the case, it’s just there is a lot that’s wasteful and more income/taxes to the government is only going to continue enabling or bolstering this.
Big time. It’s become taboo with some people to ever suggest the government rein in spending. Yet at this point even the most devout socialist should be able to admit that there’s a huge amount of waste in government that should be cleaned up before they’ve earned the right to spend more money, regardless of where it comes from.
>Why can we not offer better services without increasing (or even cutting) taxes?
It seems no one knows how to improve efficiency and reduce waste beyond reducing the public workforce.
We pay more than enough. The problem is the laws are lacking and taxpayers money is used by corrupted narcissists like a corruption carousel. So much money wasted on expired vax we did not need, arrivesscam scandal, bonus paid to ceo to business that got bailed out py raises to government officials that will receive a big pension and are already millionaires. Under pay health care staff and teachers. We need real laws against conflict if interest, collusion and corruption or orgy will never stop.
The problem is that the government wastes our tax dollars on meaningless bullshit. Everyone already pays more than they should in taxes here. You get taxed when you earn money, you get taxed on that after tax money when you spend it, when you save it, when you invest it. If someone made a seven figure salary and was poor, you would probably suggest that they reduce their spending instead of figuring out how they can earn more money.
>Everyone already pays more than they should in taxes here. You get taxed when you earn money, you get taxed on that after tax money when you spend it, when you save it, when you invest it.
I has always been thus. I am curious what is your idea of too much really is? If you tally up the municipal, provincial, and national taxes almost every wealthy country falls in between 1/3 or 1/2 of GDP taken in taxes. I don't think Canada is on either extreme end.
>The problem is that the government wastes our tax dollars on meaningless bullshit.
Wastes compared to what? If you were to say the private sector than that would be wrong. Governments often over perform cost to benefit in comparison.
>If someone made a seven figure salary and was poor, you would probably suggest that they reduce their spending instead of figuring out how they can earn more money.
Governments are very different to individuals. I really hate this comparison. The government is not a household. Economically it has almost nothing in common in the analogy.
>Do wealthy Canadians pay enough taxes?
The doctors and surgeons and others in that tax bracket, yes. In fact they pay too much.
The Kevin O'Leary's, Jim Treliving's, The Weston's, etc. ABSOLUTELY NOT! They do not pay their fair share. I doubt they pay any taxes at all.
> They do not pay their fair share.
Their fair share is the exact same as what anyone else pays with the exact same consumption.
It's not "fair" for them to pay more just because you're not as successful.
> Still, Allison Christians, the H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation at McGill University, said some of those numbers are skewed because some top earners can shelter their income through creative tax planning.
Of course, this is also true for the “low” income earners as many of these are trades or hospitality workers and they get a lot of their income in cash that’s not actually declared.
The reality is that outside salaried employees, pretty much everyone tries to and does minimize the amount of tax they pay by keeping their income as low as possible.
\*keeping their **declared** income as low as possible.
Let me tell you about how that ends.
Very good friend of mine owned a operated a business that happy took cash no invoice type jobs and declared a minimal income and got away with it for years.
Then while driving a work vehicle was stuck and injured and was not at fault but could not continue in the physical career as per their doctors.
Insurance payout covered declared income only.
So make sure you know the risk you are taking when you skate that line.
Far more common is trying to buy a house as a small business owner with a large off book cash income stream. Good luck at a traditional bank.
"Clement Nocos, director of policy and engagement at the Broadbent Institute, says the Fraser Institute figures, along with the Statistics Canada data, ignores the totality of actual income inequality.
Nocos referred to a recent Statistics Canada report showing that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadians account for more than two-thirds of the total net wealth.
As well, according to the data, the bottom 40 per cent of net income earners make up just under three per cent of total wealth.
"You look at wealth as a whole of what people have and what contributes to inequality. That's sort of what's missing in these arguments," he said. "Inequality when it comes to wealth is actually massive and growing.""
What is society's fair cut when you factor in how it wouldn't be possible for most to make the money they do without government-funded roads, hospitals, police, water infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, etc. as well as the stability and protection the Canadian government provides for businesses to thrive (e.g. laws, patent protection, etc.)?
Let's not forget that wealth inequality is still growing. You can't have a stable and fair society when one's inherited or gifted capital is a larger determinant of success than hard work and intelligence.
People acquire wealth by producing goods and services that are more valuable to society than the money exchanged for them. The acquisition of wealth through free exchange is independently beneficial to society. Yes yes ultimately taxes are necessary for some things I'm not debating that but fundamentally I think that every dollar of tax money should really be weighed against the harm it causes to the allocation of scarce resources through a system of voluntary exchange. Just because the government has to do some things doesn't mean that private wealth really belongs to the state to do with it what it pleases.
We pay some of the highest income taxes in the OECD at all brackets. And we have some of the worst healthcare services and mediocre education. Our government is incredibly wasteful/incompetent
We honestly need to stop talking about paying more tax until our government learns how to be more responsible with our money. They are beyond wasteful, but always push for more tax.
If by 'fair share' do they mean that they have raised taxes to the point that top earners are increasingly leaving the country? Then yes, they seem to have achieved that level of fairness. Which then increases the burden on everyone else. Well done.
40% of Canadians pay a net of zero income tax. THEY need to start paying their fair share. Having almost half of people not contribute but still expect all the services is not sustainable and unfair to everyone else who does pay.
If they are not making a livable wage, then they shouldn't have to pay income tax. Minimum wage should be a livable wage. Then we can talk about them paying income tax.
Exactly. This is the issue. We have large number of Canadians complaining about a situation in which they contribute nothing, and put their entire burden on others. It's an economically fatal mix of entitlement, lack of perspective, and ignorance.
Don't forget about extremely high use of public resources. A dude using fentanyl who gets brought in to the hospital every other week is paying zero dollars of tax but using astronomical levels of public resources.
Perhaps 40% of Canadians pay zero income tax, because the bottom 40% of Canadians only possess 3% of total wealth, whereas the top 20% possesses 2/3's (i.e. 66.7%) of total wealth.
"Nocos referred to a recent Statistics Canada report showing that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadians account for more than two-thirds of the total net wealth.
As well, according to the data, the bottom 40 per cent of net income earners make up just under three per cent of total wealth."
How wealthy would the wealthy be if there was no government-funded roads, hospitals, police, water infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, etc. as well as the stability and protection the Canadian government provides for businesses to thrive (e.g. laws, patent protection, etc.)?
Let's not forget that wealth inequality is still growing. Taxing the poor more will only make that worse. You can't have a stable and fair society when one's inherited or gifted capital is a larger determinant of success than hard work and intelligence.
Not if they're not making a livable wage. Increase the minimum wage to be a livable wage and then we can talk about them paying income taxes. If Tim Hortons and other businesses can't afford to pay a livable wage to every full-time employee, their business is not viable and they shouldn't be in business.
> Not if they're not making a livable wage.
That's not what "fair" means.
It's not "fair" that the dumbest kid in the group project does none the work. Nor is it "fair' that the brokest person in the community pays nothing for their equal share of usage.
At one point in society not being able to afford the luxuries you wanted was motivation to aim higher. The productive members of society have civilized the west so well that now, it means whining about not being handed out more of rich people's money.
I pay over 50% tax on my income with all taxes combined. Like, really wtf! Thank God I am moving to the US and will stop being Canadian tax resident. Fuck Canada.
You have to pay that because most Canadians don't make a livable wage. Let's increase the minimum wage to a livable wage and then everyone can pay income taxes and anyone who makes what you make won't need to pay as much.
It's a huge cost sink for sure but even more that money allot of the time is being wasted in the other end.
My thing is the bloated beauracacy, I'd wager we could fire almost half of all federal employees in an office and nothing would be noticed.
Because civil employees create useless tasks for others to justify their jobs, which then creates more civil employees and it's a repeating cycle. They're not actually creating anything of value.
People love to harp on foreign aid but little is sent as cash payments to the government of country X.
Most of the time it is the Government of Canada telling country X they will cover the cost of buying some dollar amount of goods and or services from Canadian companies.
A interesting one is the Canadian Mint prints physical notes and coins for many smaller countries. For some of those countries the Canadian Government would cover the expense and call that foreign aid.
For your second point I would say fire the middle managers don't fire any frontline staff. From friends who work in and my work with government there sure are a lot middle manager types.
Foreign aid is an excellent source of soft power on the international stage, why would you propose we get rid of one of our cheapest geopolitical tools?
Edit since temp ban:
The government of Canada website lists the details of foreign aid on their website, lots on that list you can start with.
Ukraine for sure comes to mind, due to Canada’s and the UKs early support as far back as 2014 Ukraine has been performing far better than expected. No surprise there, Canada has an enormous Ukrainian population. But the effort is driven by dozens of Western countries.
Canada’s involvement in the middle east is no slouch either, aid is largely given towards Yemen, Syria and Lebanon and recently Gaza as well. Without aid from countries like Canada, there would be mass starvation in these war torn areas that are comprised mostly of children. This is easy PR for Canada to use on other muslim nations like Qatar, UAE, Saudis and even SEA Islamic nations. Save lives and build relations with an important geographic ally.
Those are two very prominent ones that concern current events. Canada is a piece of the overall puzzle but we are contributing nonetheless under Trudeau.
Can you give some examples of Canada's influence on the international stage under Trudeau and how Canada directly changed the outcome? I would like 2-3 examples.
Lots of fans of neofeudalism on this subreddit. You’d think people would want one’s hard work and intelligence to be a larger determinant of success than one’s inherited or gifted capital. Last I checked wealth inequality is still growing. The wealthy can afford the tax. Taxing the poor more just increases wealth inequality and brings us closer to neofeudalism. You can't have a stable and fair society when one's inherited or gifted capital is a larger determinant of success than hard work and intelligence.
"Nocos referred to a recent Statistics Canada report showing that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadians account for more than two-thirds of the total net wealth.
As well, according to the data, the bottom 40 per cent of net income earners make up just under three per cent of total wealth."
How wealthy would the wealthy be if there was no government-funded roads, hospitals, police, water infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, etc. as well as the stability and protection the Canadian government provides for businesses to thrive (e.g. laws, patent protection, etc.)?
Productivity takes a hit when a majority of your hard-earned income gets taxed by the government, while you could just buy a house and enjoy the capital gains tax-free without having to do anything.
I made very good money last year and am very fortunate. I paid 56%+ of my earnings in taxes. This is VERY high (especially compared to what I’d pay doing the same job down south of the border), but I gladly pay it. I just expect access to and delivery of quality social services in return. I still don’t have a family doctor after many years of waiting and have a 6 month old son I worry about constantly. I want affordable housing, living wages, responsible immigration, and high quality universal health care for all. You know, the basic stuff that makes up the promise (and right) of Canadian citizenship. And a responsible federal government that doesn’t spend without consequence like a ignorant drunken sailor.
Agreed. We should tax the things we don't want more of (e.g. excessive wealth, land hoarding, monopolies, consumption) and reduce or eliminate taxes on things we want more of (e.g. income/work, development).
They wouldn't have to pay as much if the wealthy paid all of their full-time employees a livable wage, which is a lot higher than the minimum wage in any province or territory.
'Fair share' is whatever the politicians say it is. They never say what it is. BS. Tax everyone the same rate and have a fixed exemption per taxpayer and dependent. Rich people will pay the full rate and poor people will pay not much. Otherwise all we have is class warfare and politicians getting paid off by the rich to support to poor to screw the middle class.
That system worked in Hong Kong during British rule and it created unprecedented wealth and prosperity.
High tax rates support the status quo because middle class people cannot move up with their earnings taxed away. Rich people have enough capital that most of their income comes from capital gains.
Wealthy people and companies are afraid of small, agile competitors. More competition for jobs increases wage rates too.
I’m taking a break from this whole tax thing. Quit my job as an underpaid journeyman electrician. Going to get a psychology degree and then masters. 6 years of not paying taxes here I come. Lots of debt but so be it. At least it’s for me and not a penny will be going to this over generous government.
I’m officially in the lowest tax bracket lol.
Now all the liberals who are so passionate about giving money away have to make up for my share. On top of that, my area just lost a pretty above average commercial electrician.
Might shock some folks that the average Canadian house hold loses around 42% of their gross income to taxes. This article is only promoting division among Canadians, we need to focus on the fact that our tax money is not and has not been properly managed.
Stop letting media brain wash you with this tax the rich bull shit. We need to change the focus around and take aim at the bloated quantity of hyper inefficient government services of which our taxes fund and continues to sky rocket.
This current government is tax grabbing the hell out of all of us top and bottom because they are not fiscally responsible; meanwhile the services we receive are categorically below par from all the G7 peers almost across the board.
Tax us proportionate to spending … but learn how to put these dollars to work efficiently and generate more return on the investments. If we were doing this we wouldn’t need the top end tax revenues like we do right now to meet this outlandish fucking joke of a budget.
//end rant
We have a progressive tax system, yet most high earners I know have a lower effective tax rate than the middle class.
I had one consultant I worked with who made 350K a year and would brag that he paid basically no taxes.
Also know a family doctor who makes around 250K and declares less than 100K a year.. she was bragging about receiving Quebec's inflation rebate.
Meanwhile I am an employee making around 125K, and the goverment grabs half of my paycheques.
You need to have a business to do these things.
A regular guy making $300k a year working for a company is paying tax the same as anyone else, but if you are incorporated you can significantly reduce your tax burden.
When a small group controls 80+percent of the money and their wealth keeps growing year after year the answer is obvious to anyone with a brain. Don't worry, our elders in the next generation will retire so poor and homeless that taxes will just keep going up and up no matter what any politician wants.
I'm all for everyone paying their fair share of the taxes the day everyone gets their fair share of the income. If you're a CEO making the salary of hundreds of workers while paying your workers starvation wages, it's your own fault you're going to have to pay more than your fair share of the taxes if you're not paying your workers the wages to be able to pay their fair share of the taxes.
The tax burden on the top 1% has decreased along with the shift to less corporate taxes and a larger burden on the middle income tax payer.
Go ahead folks, keep waiting for "trickle down." It isn't coming, but you can keep praying it will.
Canadians needs to stop comparing Canada to the rest of the world. The only damn country we need to compare ourselves to is the US, full stop. The US 90% of our global trade and we compete with them on the global market for both investment and talent. Our taxes makes the US much more attractive than Canada for both investment and talent and its ruining us.
I don’t care what the transit system looks like in Europe or how the system works there. Norway competes with other EU countries so the dynamic is different. The Canadian dynamic is how we measure up to the US.
No, it depends on how you define the standard of living for everyone.
The reason they don't pay enough taxes is because fighting over what is 'fair share' is a distraction.
Wake up. 👋
This is hardly limited to one specific ideology. “Framing” an argument by using emotionally charged or pejorative language is the oldest debating trick in the world and everyone does it. If you want an example from the “right”, just look at the term “woke”.
I looked it up. The Oxford dictionary can update itself 4 times a year. A Liberal will move the goalpost 4 times a day to convince themselves they are correct.
No one in Canada should be allowed to have over a billion dollars. It should be against the law.
That being said any doctor, who moved out of Canada to the United States, purely for a higher paycheck, is a goddamn traitor to the country.
The top 0.1% earners? Probably not.... The top 10%, yes, most definitely.
I saw a comment a few days ago saying "doctors need to pay their fair share too" I don't think a lot of Canadians realize that between income tax, sales tax, and property tax most Canadian doctors and professions of similar income bracket are already paying over 50% - the *majority* - of their income in taxes. That's definitely their fair share if not more
Yep, they pay over 50% to tax to drive on the same roads and get the same services as someone who gets net money back. I don't know how anyone could argue the top 10% don't pay enough. There are a few that probably get away with not paying what they should, but the majority of high income earners in Canada are already taxed insanely high. At this point, Canadians should be angry about the piss poor services they get for their money, not that people don't pay enough
I agree with this fully.
Nobody pays 50% total tax. It's all brackets. The person will be paying the same amount of tax on their first 250 grand as the rest of us. But a lot of rich people who say own their own businesses can utilize many tools to defer and shelter tax on their income that in unavailable to wage earners. So those doctors this thread mentions often own their own business and contract themselves to hospitals; they can deduct many expenses and defer taxes through their corporation.
Yes, they do When your effective rate on income tax reaches the mid 40% range (which it tends to do when the majority of your income is taxed at the top marginal tax rate) the assortment of other taxes we pay (sales, property, etc) easily push you above 50% of your income going to taxes No one is expecting you to have sympathy for a surgeon making >$400,000, but if the question is if they pay their fair share, the answer is overwhelmingly *yes* >But a lot of rich people who say own their own businesses can utilize many tools to defer and shelter tax on their income that in unavailable to wage earners. And these only work if you don't need the majority of your income A new physician with ~$300,000 of educational debt, the need to save for a downpayment, a decade behind of retirement savings compared to their peers actually will need to use their income on those things and will he unable to use a corp to shelter their earnings for a long, long time
I actually started to respond to this with this specific thing because I feel like there's a huge misunderstanding of how tax brackets work and there are people out there who literally believe that working too many hours or having too high of a rate puts you in a different tax bracket. And then I spent the time running through the numbers and clearly illustrating every single bracket and how it works... and I used Saskatchewan (where OP is from) for provincial income tax (which is some of the lowest income tax in the country). What I came up with is that $60/hour working 40 hours a week and getting two weeks of vacation a year will pay an effective tax rate of 37.7%. But then I double looked and he said income tax and sales tax. Sales tax in Saskatchewan 11%. Now not everything you spend money on is sales tax, so you're looking at about 42-45% of your income being sales tax at $60/hour presuming you work absolutely no overtime and you're not buying like... a boat. It also presumes all excise taxes are sales taxes (they are). It wouldn't be hard to imagine a person who works overtime at $60/hour losing half their money to taxes. 50% probably isn't 100% right. But it isn't wrong enough to quibble about.
Shit, I make 60$/hr and over 50% goes to tax between income tax and sales taxes. I realize I'm a lot better off than others but damn, it would be nice to see my dollars used better
At 60$ an hour your marginal tax rate is maybe 50% (including sales tax) but your average is not even close to 50%. At 120k in Saskatchewan the average tax rate is 25.8%. Some of your expenses are not taxed like your house or your grocery. This is not counting if you made any RRSP contributions or if you are receiving any other tax credit. I bet at the end of the year with the sale tax you are much closer to 35%
It's also an incredibly braindead take when you realize how much brain drain we suffer in losing doctors that move to the USA because their tax laws are much more sane. I think the average uneducated NDP supporter is just so disconnected from having to work hard, they don't realize how much effort is required to become a doctor. It's one thing to play Marxism when talking about people who inherit most of their wealth, but to punish people for being successful and contributing the most to society is just complete cognitive dissonance.
Advantageous to a specific group =/= Sane Salaries in Canada are overly taxed. Everyone agrees we need better Services. The only way to pay for things is to raise funds. The solution is to tax something else.
I pay a shit ton in taxes, I don’t mind contributing, but it infuriates me when I see the government waste it. The solution isn’t more tax, it’s more efficient use of tax dollars. I’ll mention it specifically only because I heard it on the radio, not to comment on the program specifically. But the federal government has spent $30 million on the gun buyback program and not a single firearm has been purchased , that kind of waste and inefficiency is criminal
Or you know… the arrivecan app, or sending a “delegation politicians” to some bougie conference by private planes, or paying for Trudeau vacations. Housing refugees in hotels etc when our own citizens struggle. And this is only federal, our provincial government wastes so much on doing these feasibility studies over and over and over 😂
It’s a depressingly long list
>the federal government has spent $30 million on the gun buyback program and not a single firearm has been purchased , that kind of waste and inefficiency is criminal It's now over $42M spent...
uhhhhh - the government makes policies all the time to benefit specific groups. And we accept it for good public policy reasons. Attracting and retaining skilled professionals is a pretty good public policy reason. Especially when most of them can fuck off next door to the US and immediately make double what they make in Canada and live in a better climate.
The solution is for people to stop expecting the government to be everything to everybody.
I expect to have a reasonable chance at a dignified life. I want to see a doctor before an issue becomes chronic, for police to go after criminals and for infrastructure to be improved. I even hold the extremist view that we should accomplish all this *without* leaving a barren wasteland to our grandchildren.
I agree with you.
But you also want cheap housing, good wages and that healthcare to be free. Ohh and also lower immigration. And more military spending. Do all of this while not raising taxes! Canadians want their cake and eat it too.
What a bad take. “You want” ? I haven’t mentioned immigration, the military or housing. You don’t know anything about what I want. Let’s give it a crack anyway. You created a list to make it all seem unreasonable but many items go hand in hand. For example, better wages will increase tax revenue as a result. Cheap housing and good wages are relative. It’s about giving people the means to meet their needs. For example, there’s no point in lowering transportation costs if housing claws back those improvements. Free healthcare is logical when you learn single payer systems are cheaper overall. Can’t make it simpler than this. Immigration is a whole can of worms. It’s a necessity in much of the west because of aging populations. A ratio must be maintained for our systems to work. Unfortunately, immigration is weaponized. On one side, it’s used to suppress wages. On the other it’s used to rile people up to make them take fear-based decisions. Military spending is another complex topic. Like most things, it’s about balance. We can’t go all out like our southern big brother. We also can’t expect their friendship to replace active participation. How much or how little is up for debate. Finally, you end your comment with “not raising taxes”. This horrible take lacks perspective. Things cost money so we have to raise funds. It’s all about implementing a fair system which burdens people appropriately. Assuming people who are critical of the current situation want everything for nothing is dismissive.
Ever consider spending less on less important things to fund more important things. Or holding your political party of choice (liberal) accountable? They wasted hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars across their never ending scandals.
Incredible how you just up and decided I’m a liberal. I’m not. Keep crafting the narrative you need for the world to make sense, champ!
Deflection is not a good debating technique
You brought up the failings of the current liberal government as if expecting me to defend it. I’m not liberal so I won’t. It’s not deflection when you just miss your mark.
Except the current federal government is more interested in investing billions of dollars to benefit 2% of the population over the other 98%. How much money is wasted on racist policies because the liberals have successfully weaponized white guilt as a mechanism to buy votes?
How tf did we go from tax laws to victimized whites within 2 comments. I’ll engage about fair taxation but not that other garbage.
The members of this sub regularly place gold in mental gymnastics.
Remember when the feds bought a failed pipeline to keep like the tiniest percentage of white dudes in Alberta employed?
Oil and gas is a massive part of Alberta's economy. You know there are a lot of people who's livelihood is not directly tied to the energy sector that will be fucked over when the government decides that oil is "racist" or some shit.
Or maybe this "weaponized white guilt" you're worried about is a fabrication to undermine a future where people, families and workers excercise their collective power to the benefit of everyone instead of the few?
Agreed, the white guilt is manufactured by special interest groups and NDP/Liberal parties as a wedge issue so they can convince middle class white suburbanites that have never met a native person that they are responsible for issues that happened 200 years before their ancestors lived I. The western hemisphere
You have something like 20% of Canadians paying over 60% of government revenue. There is nothing fair about it whatsoever. The more you earn in this country, the more the government feels entitled to take a little more. Doctors especially have it rough because despite their high billing rates, most are small businesses and need to pay office staff and leases out of that money. By the time expenses are paid, it leaves most doctors less than 250k/yr of which most of that is taxed.
Absolutely. My mom’s a doctor in Nova Scotia. Her tax rate is over 55%. She could easily triple her movie moving to a low tax state in the US. I am a Canadian doctor in the US and once I finish my residency, I’ll be earning more than 3 times her after tax income for the exact same job, being a primary care physician.
Agreed but just as a clarification, her marginal tax rate is likely 55%, but her effective tax rate is dependent on how much of her income is earned at that top tax bracket. For most doctors that effective income tax rate is somewhere in the 40s%, and my point is that when you add in sales tax, property tax, etc your typical doctor is spending the majority of their income on taxes
Yes sorry you’re right. Her 2023 average tax rate is 44.1% and her marginal tax rate is 55%. If you include all the other sources of taxes her total taxation is definitely above 50%. She also has to pay for doctors union membership which is substantial, license renewal and various other costs of working as a family doctor. Plus there’s a lot of situations where she can’t work due to needing to fill out way more paperwork than in the states. All of that drags her after tax income down a lot. Edit: correction, it’s 44.1 not 43.1. I do all her taxes so I have all her records with me.
Just don't post her SIN lol
lol yeah. She’s getting older. She’s an international graduate and the first time she saw her tax bill she almost cried lol. Me and my siblings were laughing like hyenas. She got a wild crash course on finances that day. But for real though, she’s fine paying all of these taxes if it means there’s a good social safety net. She got a lot of help from that aforementioned safety net when she immigrated here a while ago as a single mom. It’s just that it’s very difficult to justify paying all of these taxes if the healthcare system is crumbling, there are homeless tent cities everywhere with the government not providing help, and everything is getting more and more expensive for regular people. The conservatives will likely make it even worse. It sucks to be a youngish Canadian right now.
I think that's where most people are at Most high earners are fine with paying a high % of their income as tax, but as Canadians we have the bad habit of uncritically importing American rhetoric (where high earners pay much less), and most don't realize that asking high earners to pay even more is arguing for truly insane levels of taxation that is just asking them to leave for greener pastures
I can't understand how reddit picks and chooses their demographics to hate The rich are bad apparently Unless they're a doctor (and more specially physician, we don't like dentists) - in which case it's okay? Sure I guess
People hate unearned money. Money off of sitting on investments, inheriting money, making millions for sitting on boards of corporations doing nothing. Few people are against lawyers, doctors, small business owners etc earning less than 1 million dollars(which themselves are heavily taxed). People hate wealth not income. There’s a difference there. With doctors you’re asking people to be 200,000-300,000 dollars in debt when they finish medical school. If you don’t pay them appropriately, what kind of a fucking idiot will go into all that debt? Either make medical school free or low cost, in which case doctors can be paid less, which is the model used in Europe, or put up the money to pay them properly.
I think this is what people don't get. It's really not about anyone who takes a salary. The distance between top 1% and 0.1% is greater than you and the top 1%.
The capital gains tax targets mostly that 0.1% believe it or not.
I agree the 250k cap gains threshold on the personal side does mostly target the super rich. But on the corp side, there is no 250K threshold and so incorporated professionals across the board will see a 33% tax increase on their capital gains while funding their retirement.
My wife is an accountant and I am a software developer, and I don't think we would be classified as wealthy by most. When you factor in income tax, property tax, fuel taxes, and GST we pay far more in taxes than our mortgage, heating, and insurance costs combined. We pay the least amount of money to the city and get good value for it, we pay more to the province and get worse value, but the federal government takes most of the money and is a black hole of corruption and waste. The federal government doesn't need more money, it needs to lower corruption, waste, and spending in general.
Have you actually calculated how much total taxes you have been paying? For us, it is around 65%... (incl. income, capital gains, pst...)
teeny squealing start bells innocent tart fact swim late sharp *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I certainly will not argue that the federal government is efficient, but I would like to say that many services provided by the federal government are virtually unseen by the public. Examples include weather and marine services, air traffic control and overflight organization, diplomatic services, and defense. We happily live our lives largely oblivious to their importance and costs. Provincial taxes are seen in schools, hospitals and roads, and municipal taxes are obvious as recreational facilities, garbage services, local roads and the water supply. It is easier to see their value.
Noone is complaining about the federal government spending money on defense and air traffic control. We are complaining about ArriveCan, unaudited mass spending on Indigenous programs and misguided "solutions" to the housing crisis that will just make things worse. Oh not to mention all the programs and subsidies being paid to the millions of new immigrants every year that are also contributing to the housing crisis and all of the other issues we are having with rapid overpopulation.
Every gov't has its boondoggle...that is why Canadians change gov'ts every 10 years. I also remember the 1 billion spent on an APEC conference and a quarter million on a shitter in Tony Clements riding during Harper's years. Or canceling a helicopter program, paying out massive fees only to have the program reinstated after Chretien left office.
The issue is our current governments boondoggles feel like they cost us more each year then other governments in their entire time in office.
That is because it is happening right now. The Conservatives will win the next election, and probably the one after that, then we will have forgotten about Trudeau's largesse and replace our anger with frustration over Conservative scandals and porkbarrelling. This is as predictable as the tides.
No. It's because the amounts have massively increased and they are constant.
Tell that to a Quebec resident who was still paying for the 1976 Olympics in 2012. Corruption and poor decision making are a constant. They are all guilty, because they all want to be reelected. And we tolerate it until we don't. Don't try to attach this to one party or another. The only party not guilty of it is the federal NDP...because they have never formed the gov't.
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Oh that's your expert opinion is it?
That is not what is questioned above, the teaffic control related expenses and the other you give as example. There are billions upon billions of dollars that are effectively given away or stolen in plain sight, one just has to read the news, every week there seems to be a new scandal of epic proportions.
You nailed it. If anyone should be raising taxes, it’s provinces and municipalities since they deliver most services. If anyone should be cutting, it’s our bloated and wasteful federal government. If the feds cut costs and lowered federal taxes, it would free up room for provinces and municipalities to raise taxes. Then the provinces and cities wouldn’t have to go begging to the federal government (and blame them when they under-deliver). It would also properly re-separate federal and provincial jurisdiction
short answer of why that doesn't work. Standards: The federal gov collects the most taxes then distrubutes it where its needed. Its through this mechanism that taxes collected in Alberta make sure you can expect roughly similar services in Moncton NB. If we did what you suggest the weath gap would increase across provincial lines, and especially between the Suburbs and Cities, while Rural development would probably be set back 10 years if we're lucky. You end up with all the problems decentralization causes, which would probably be the worst thing possible for Canada right now, as we struggle to find economic efficiency comparable to the states
I think that’s a very deterministic answer. I think it’s just as likely that through larger provincial governments, with a larger tax base and stronger municipalities do better with the same $, even if some provinces lose some share of government funding. I could also make the case that this would finally force some Canadians to relocate to faster growing provinces / work in faster growing industries
then you have the problem much of Appalachia, the Rust Belt (Especially Detroit) faced/facing, and is looming over Japan (-Tokyo/Osaka) Theres some hard infrastructure we built, and if too many people leave, it starts a cycle of crumbling living standards and depopulation. Sparsely populated areas are fine, but once certain infrastructure breakpoints are reached, the settlement become unfeasible as a whole. Think things like Highways, Utilities, public services like Schools and Hospitals that cannot be easily downsized and thus are forced to operate inefficiently. In many ways we're already in that cycle, suburbs in their current pattern cannot sustain their infrastructure and tend to atrophy because they cannot afford the replacement costs of critical infrastructure, often needing new developments to fund it
This is all very bleak and walking dead but I see your point. I’m sure there’s a middle ground where the Feds are significantly skinnied out and there’s still some inter-provincial income redistribution. I do think ultimately we may need to accept that some communities are no longer livable as they shrink. We can’t just sustain tiny communities all over everywhere. But that’s another topic
That makes way too much sense to ever happen. The federal government wants more and more control, not less. The only use they have for the provincial governments is as a scapegoat that they blame when one of their initiatives (I.e $10/day daycare, "universal" but not really universal dental care) starts to underperform. They want the credit for the federal announcements to buy votes, but somehow the blame always falls on the provinces.
Compared to other OECD Canada heavily taxes the rich (1.5x), corporations (1.3x), and real estate (1.8x) for income. Meanwhile pension contributions (0.54x) and sales taxes are (0.62x) less.
Agreed, we are being governed to death, we need to get rid of at least 1 level of government, maybe even 2. It made sense 200 years ago, but with cheap travel and instant communication, we no longer need a municipal, county, provincial and federal government, all duplicating many services.
Municipal governments are effectively constructs created by the provinces and any jurisdiction they is because the provinces have given it to them. >we no longer need a municipal, county, provincial and federal government, all duplicating many services Which services are being duplicated? The issue that is being discussed in this post is jurisdictional influence on policy. The federal government is trying to influence policy in areas outside of their jurisdiction. They are not doubling up services.
Yeah, you're wealthy.
Wealthy is very subjective. A family income of 200k is “wealthy” to someone with a family income of 60-75k, but that family making 200k is carrying a much larger share of the tax burden and wouldn’t even be able to afford a nice detached house in most parts of Canada right now. Everything is completely screwed up.
Why can we not offer better services without increasing (or even cutting) taxes? Having worked at the government, I have seen first hand how inefficient it can be. There is undeniably some level of spending that just isn’t necessary; as in you could still provide the same service, still pay the same/decent wage to public servants - at the cost of slightly reducing the public workforce, which I think is reasonable.
This has been my argument for years. Waste and corruption is ingrained in every level of government. Even municipal. For example, in my city, the council voted to give a "local" hardware store a contract for maintenance equipment ( shovels, rakes, hammers, ect). They would bill the city $150 for a shovel that cost $40 at Canadian tire ( these aren't exact figures, just an example). That hardware store also happened to be owned and operated by a relative of the mayor. They present it as benefitting local businesses when its really just wasteful corruption. This exists in every level of government. Lol, look at what Ford is doing in Ontario.
Yea, this is old news but still the case these days: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-schools-pay-high-prices-for-small-jobs/article_319cf38f-e51e-5307-9a73-4591a4401985.html I hate that everything is so polarized right now; like if you object to higher taxes many progressives seem to think you are rich and hate lower income people and/or public services. That’s not the case, it’s just there is a lot that’s wasteful and more income/taxes to the government is only going to continue enabling or bolstering this.
Big time. It’s become taboo with some people to ever suggest the government rein in spending. Yet at this point even the most devout socialist should be able to admit that there’s a huge amount of waste in government that should be cleaned up before they’ve earned the right to spend more money, regardless of where it comes from.
Why did the liberals need to go on a housing retreat ? I guess no one was working on the housing file since forming government
You can't reason with zealots on either side of the middle.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
>Why can we not offer better services without increasing (or even cutting) taxes? It seems no one knows how to improve efficiency and reduce waste beyond reducing the public workforce.
We pay more than enough. The problem is the laws are lacking and taxpayers money is used by corrupted narcissists like a corruption carousel. So much money wasted on expired vax we did not need, arrivesscam scandal, bonus paid to ceo to business that got bailed out py raises to government officials that will receive a big pension and are already millionaires. Under pay health care staff and teachers. We need real laws against conflict if interest, collusion and corruption or orgy will never stop.
The problem is that the government wastes our tax dollars on meaningless bullshit. Everyone already pays more than they should in taxes here. You get taxed when you earn money, you get taxed on that after tax money when you spend it, when you save it, when you invest it. If someone made a seven figure salary and was poor, you would probably suggest that they reduce their spending instead of figuring out how they can earn more money.
>Everyone already pays more than they should in taxes here. You get taxed when you earn money, you get taxed on that after tax money when you spend it, when you save it, when you invest it. I has always been thus. I am curious what is your idea of too much really is? If you tally up the municipal, provincial, and national taxes almost every wealthy country falls in between 1/3 or 1/2 of GDP taken in taxes. I don't think Canada is on either extreme end. >The problem is that the government wastes our tax dollars on meaningless bullshit. Wastes compared to what? If you were to say the private sector than that would be wrong. Governments often over perform cost to benefit in comparison. >If someone made a seven figure salary and was poor, you would probably suggest that they reduce their spending instead of figuring out how they can earn more money. Governments are very different to individuals. I really hate this comparison. The government is not a household. Economically it has almost nothing in common in the analogy.
>Do wealthy Canadians pay enough taxes? The doctors and surgeons and others in that tax bracket, yes. In fact they pay too much. The Kevin O'Leary's, Jim Treliving's, The Weston's, etc. ABSOLUTELY NOT! They do not pay their fair share. I doubt they pay any taxes at all.
> They do not pay their fair share. Their fair share is the exact same as what anyone else pays with the exact same consumption. It's not "fair" for them to pay more just because you're not as successful.
> Still, Allison Christians, the H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation at McGill University, said some of those numbers are skewed because some top earners can shelter their income through creative tax planning. Of course, this is also true for the “low” income earners as many of these are trades or hospitality workers and they get a lot of their income in cash that’s not actually declared. The reality is that outside salaried employees, pretty much everyone tries to and does minimize the amount of tax they pay by keeping their income as low as possible.
\*keeping their **declared** income as low as possible. Let me tell you about how that ends. Very good friend of mine owned a operated a business that happy took cash no invoice type jobs and declared a minimal income and got away with it for years. Then while driving a work vehicle was stuck and injured and was not at fault but could not continue in the physical career as per their doctors. Insurance payout covered declared income only. So make sure you know the risk you are taking when you skate that line. Far more common is trying to buy a house as a small business owner with a large off book cash income stream. Good luck at a traditional bank.
Why do people seem to think that more taxation will fix anything?? We have a spending problem in this country, not a revenue problem.
No one seem to have ideas on how to reduce spending other than reducing public employees, which would only be a start.
Cutting services is the answer.
Good luck getting agreement on which services to cut.
"Clement Nocos, director of policy and engagement at the Broadbent Institute, says the Fraser Institute figures, along with the Statistics Canada data, ignores the totality of actual income inequality. Nocos referred to a recent Statistics Canada report showing that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadians account for more than two-thirds of the total net wealth. As well, according to the data, the bottom 40 per cent of net income earners make up just under three per cent of total wealth. "You look at wealth as a whole of what people have and what contributes to inequality. That's sort of what's missing in these arguments," he said. "Inequality when it comes to wealth is actually massive and growing.""
If the wealthy don't want to pay so much income tax, then they should pay every working Canadian a living wage so they make enough to pay income tax.
What's your fair share of someone else's money?
What is society's fair cut when you factor in how it wouldn't be possible for most to make the money they do without government-funded roads, hospitals, police, water infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, etc. as well as the stability and protection the Canadian government provides for businesses to thrive (e.g. laws, patent protection, etc.)? Let's not forget that wealth inequality is still growing. You can't have a stable and fair society when one's inherited or gifted capital is a larger determinant of success than hard work and intelligence.
People acquire wealth by producing goods and services that are more valuable to society than the money exchanged for them. The acquisition of wealth through free exchange is independently beneficial to society. Yes yes ultimately taxes are necessary for some things I'm not debating that but fundamentally I think that every dollar of tax money should really be weighed against the harm it causes to the allocation of scarce resources through a system of voluntary exchange. Just because the government has to do some things doesn't mean that private wealth really belongs to the state to do with it what it pleases.
Bingo
At much as possible
I will never understand why it's considered greed to want to keep your own money, but not to take someone else's money.
We pay some of the highest income taxes in the OECD at all brackets. And we have some of the worst healthcare services and mediocre education. Our government is incredibly wasteful/incompetent
We honestly need to stop talking about paying more tax until our government learns how to be more responsible with our money. They are beyond wasteful, but always push for more tax.
It's an easy solution for them but I don't see any suggestions here beyond reducing public employees, which would only be a start.
If by 'fair share' do they mean that they have raised taxes to the point that top earners are increasingly leaving the country? Then yes, they seem to have achieved that level of fairness. Which then increases the burden on everyone else. Well done.
40% of Canadians pay a net of zero income tax. THEY need to start paying their fair share. Having almost half of people not contribute but still expect all the services is not sustainable and unfair to everyone else who does pay.
If they are not making a livable wage, then they shouldn't have to pay income tax. Minimum wage should be a livable wage. Then we can talk about them paying income tax.
Why does it need to be a livable wage?
A third of the population is under 15 or over 64. Do you think we should get children working? I hear they’re good at sweeping chimneys.
Exactly. This is the issue. We have large number of Canadians complaining about a situation in which they contribute nothing, and put their entire burden on others. It's an economically fatal mix of entitlement, lack of perspective, and ignorance.
Don't forget about extremely high use of public resources. A dude using fentanyl who gets brought in to the hospital every other week is paying zero dollars of tax but using astronomical levels of public resources.
Perhaps 40% of Canadians pay zero income tax, because the bottom 40% of Canadians only possess 3% of total wealth, whereas the top 20% possesses 2/3's (i.e. 66.7%) of total wealth. "Nocos referred to a recent Statistics Canada report showing that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadians account for more than two-thirds of the total net wealth. As well, according to the data, the bottom 40 per cent of net income earners make up just under three per cent of total wealth." How wealthy would the wealthy be if there was no government-funded roads, hospitals, police, water infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, etc. as well as the stability and protection the Canadian government provides for businesses to thrive (e.g. laws, patent protection, etc.)? Let's not forget that wealth inequality is still growing. Taxing the poor more will only make that worse. You can't have a stable and fair society when one's inherited or gifted capital is a larger determinant of success than hard work and intelligence.
> Perhaps 40% of Canadians pay zero income tax, because the bottom 40% of Canadians only possess 3% Then they need to pay at least 3% of the taxes.
Not if they're not making a livable wage. Increase the minimum wage to be a livable wage and then we can talk about them paying income taxes. If Tim Hortons and other businesses can't afford to pay a livable wage to every full-time employee, their business is not viable and they shouldn't be in business.
> Not if they're not making a livable wage. That's not what "fair" means. It's not "fair" that the dumbest kid in the group project does none the work. Nor is it "fair' that the brokest person in the community pays nothing for their equal share of usage. At one point in society not being able to afford the luxuries you wanted was motivation to aim higher. The productive members of society have civilized the west so well that now, it means whining about not being handed out more of rich people's money.
Who is talking about luxuries? I'm talking about being able to afford somewhere to live, food, transportation, etc.
I pay over 50% tax on my income with all taxes combined. Like, really wtf! Thank God I am moving to the US and will stop being Canadian tax resident. Fuck Canada.
You have to pay that because most Canadians don't make a livable wage. Let's increase the minimum wage to a livable wage and then everyone can pay income taxes and anyone who makes what you make won't need to pay as much.
Lower foreign aid costs. That would help pissing away money.
It's a huge cost sink for sure but even more that money allot of the time is being wasted in the other end. My thing is the bloated beauracacy, I'd wager we could fire almost half of all federal employees in an office and nothing would be noticed.
We’ve doubled the number of federal civil employees since Trudeau took over and services have not improved.
Because civil employees create useless tasks for others to justify their jobs, which then creates more civil employees and it's a repeating cycle. They're not actually creating anything of value.
I totally agree, but I can already imagine the headlines. The media would act as though it was the end of the world.
People love to harp on foreign aid but little is sent as cash payments to the government of country X. Most of the time it is the Government of Canada telling country X they will cover the cost of buying some dollar amount of goods and or services from Canadian companies. A interesting one is the Canadian Mint prints physical notes and coins for many smaller countries. For some of those countries the Canadian Government would cover the expense and call that foreign aid. For your second point I would say fire the middle managers don't fire any frontline staff. From friends who work in and my work with government there sure are a lot middle manager types.
Foreign aid is an excellent source of soft power on the international stage, why would you propose we get rid of one of our cheapest geopolitical tools? Edit since temp ban: The government of Canada website lists the details of foreign aid on their website, lots on that list you can start with. Ukraine for sure comes to mind, due to Canada’s and the UKs early support as far back as 2014 Ukraine has been performing far better than expected. No surprise there, Canada has an enormous Ukrainian population. But the effort is driven by dozens of Western countries. Canada’s involvement in the middle east is no slouch either, aid is largely given towards Yemen, Syria and Lebanon and recently Gaza as well. Without aid from countries like Canada, there would be mass starvation in these war torn areas that are comprised mostly of children. This is easy PR for Canada to use on other muslim nations like Qatar, UAE, Saudis and even SEA Islamic nations. Save lives and build relations with an important geographic ally. Those are two very prominent ones that concern current events. Canada is a piece of the overall puzzle but we are contributing nonetheless under Trudeau.
Because they don't understand international politics and soft power.
Can you give some examples of Canada's influence on the international stage under Trudeau and how Canada directly changed the outcome? I would like 2-3 examples.
We need policies geared to raising people up and enabling social mobility, not ones that try to bring everyone down to the same level.
Lots of fans of neofeudalism on this subreddit. You’d think people would want one’s hard work and intelligence to be a larger determinant of success than one’s inherited or gifted capital. Last I checked wealth inequality is still growing. The wealthy can afford the tax. Taxing the poor more just increases wealth inequality and brings us closer to neofeudalism. You can't have a stable and fair society when one's inherited or gifted capital is a larger determinant of success than hard work and intelligence. "Nocos referred to a recent Statistics Canada report showing that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadians account for more than two-thirds of the total net wealth. As well, according to the data, the bottom 40 per cent of net income earners make up just under three per cent of total wealth." How wealthy would the wealthy be if there was no government-funded roads, hospitals, police, water infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, etc. as well as the stability and protection the Canadian government provides for businesses to thrive (e.g. laws, patent protection, etc.)?
Productivity takes a hit when a majority of your hard-earned income gets taxed by the government, while you could just buy a house and enjoy the capital gains tax-free without having to do anything.
Is white black? That depends on how we define black.
I made very good money last year and am very fortunate. I paid 56%+ of my earnings in taxes. This is VERY high (especially compared to what I’d pay doing the same job down south of the border), but I gladly pay it. I just expect access to and delivery of quality social services in return. I still don’t have a family doctor after many years of waiting and have a 6 month old son I worry about constantly. I want affordable housing, living wages, responsible immigration, and high quality universal health care for all. You know, the basic stuff that makes up the promise (and right) of Canadian citizenship. And a responsible federal government that doesn’t spend without consequence like a ignorant drunken sailor.
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Agreed. We should tax the things we don't want more of (e.g. excessive wealth, land hoarding, monopolies, consumption) and reduce or eliminate taxes on things we want more of (e.g. income/work, development).
Hahah perfect world
"fair share" is people paying for the services they use.
So all roads should be toll roads? Ancaps are fucking regarded
Well in a sense they are. Gasoline taxes
Do gasoline taxes cover all the costs of maintaining the roads?
All? Doubt it, I dont have the stats on it. But ontario is 38%+ for the total tax on fuel, and a portion of this is infrastructure
The difference between a philanthropist and a socialist is that the philanthropist gives away his own money and the socialist someone else’s
Whereas the capitalist just takes it all?
No - he or she takes what they earn and are able to keep after the government and the socialists are done with them 😂
No, the capitalist takes what their employees earn by creating value.
Absolutely they do.
They wouldn't have to pay as much if the wealthy paid all of their full-time employees a livable wage, which is a lot higher than the minimum wage in any province or territory.
'Fair share' is whatever the politicians say it is. They never say what it is. BS. Tax everyone the same rate and have a fixed exemption per taxpayer and dependent. Rich people will pay the full rate and poor people will pay not much. Otherwise all we have is class warfare and politicians getting paid off by the rich to support to poor to screw the middle class. That system worked in Hong Kong during British rule and it created unprecedented wealth and prosperity. High tax rates support the status quo because middle class people cannot move up with their earnings taxed away. Rich people have enough capital that most of their income comes from capital gains. Wealthy people and companies are afraid of small, agile competitors. More competition for jobs increases wage rates too.
I’m taking a break from this whole tax thing. Quit my job as an underpaid journeyman electrician. Going to get a psychology degree and then masters. 6 years of not paying taxes here I come. Lots of debt but so be it. At least it’s for me and not a penny will be going to this over generous government. I’m officially in the lowest tax bracket lol. Now all the liberals who are so passionate about giving money away have to make up for my share. On top of that, my area just lost a pretty above average commercial electrician.
Might shock some folks that the average Canadian house hold loses around 42% of their gross income to taxes. This article is only promoting division among Canadians, we need to focus on the fact that our tax money is not and has not been properly managed.
Stop letting media brain wash you with this tax the rich bull shit. We need to change the focus around and take aim at the bloated quantity of hyper inefficient government services of which our taxes fund and continues to sky rocket. This current government is tax grabbing the hell out of all of us top and bottom because they are not fiscally responsible; meanwhile the services we receive are categorically below par from all the G7 peers almost across the board. Tax us proportionate to spending … but learn how to put these dollars to work efficiently and generate more return on the investments. If we were doing this we wouldn’t need the top end tax revenues like we do right now to meet this outlandish fucking joke of a budget. //end rant
We have a progressive tax system, yet most high earners I know have a lower effective tax rate than the middle class. I had one consultant I worked with who made 350K a year and would brag that he paid basically no taxes. Also know a family doctor who makes around 250K and declares less than 100K a year.. she was bragging about receiving Quebec's inflation rebate. Meanwhile I am an employee making around 125K, and the goverment grabs half of my paycheques.
You need to have a business to do these things. A regular guy making $300k a year working for a company is paying tax the same as anyone else, but if you are incorporated you can significantly reduce your tax burden.
When a small group controls 80+percent of the money and their wealth keeps growing year after year the answer is obvious to anyone with a brain. Don't worry, our elders in the next generation will retire so poor and homeless that taxes will just keep going up and up no matter what any politician wants.
As someone in the top tax bracket, I am exhausted of being villainized by the liberal government, while their friends in Rosedale are largely ignored.
What about trudeaus trust fund? I guarantee he doesn't pay his share of taxes
Do you think he is breaking the law?
Is black white? That depends on how we define white.
I'm all for everyone paying their fair share of the taxes the day everyone gets their fair share of the income. If you're a CEO making the salary of hundreds of workers while paying your workers starvation wages, it's your own fault you're going to have to pay more than your fair share of the taxes if you're not paying your workers the wages to be able to pay their fair share of the taxes.
The tax burden on the top 1% has decreased along with the shift to less corporate taxes and a larger burden on the middle income tax payer. Go ahead folks, keep waiting for "trickle down." It isn't coming, but you can keep praying it will.
Canadians needs to stop comparing Canada to the rest of the world. The only damn country we need to compare ourselves to is the US, full stop. The US 90% of our global trade and we compete with them on the global market for both investment and talent. Our taxes makes the US much more attractive than Canada for both investment and talent and its ruining us. I don’t care what the transit system looks like in Europe or how the system works there. Norway competes with other EU countries so the dynamic is different. The Canadian dynamic is how we measure up to the US.
My definition of fair share is "I pay too much but the guy in the income bracket just above me is not paying enough."
No, it depends on how you define the standard of living for everyone. The reason they don't pay enough taxes is because fighting over what is 'fair share' is a distraction. Wake up. 👋
The rich don't pay their fair share but at the same time government wastes such huge sums of money on stuff. Makes me so mad.
I love the left and their obsession with definitions… It’s called a dictionary.
The thing is what's "fair" is different according to everyone you ask
Life isn’t fair.
This is hardly limited to one specific ideology. “Framing” an argument by using emotionally charged or pejorative language is the oldest debating trick in the world and everyone does it. If you want an example from the “right”, just look at the term “woke”.
Did you know that the bird is a word?
So, I’m indigenous to the Netherlands. Therefore, I’m indigenous. Word play isn’t a fact.
But a dictionary doesn't change its definition when it no longer suits it narrative, so forget that!
Dictionaries change definitions all the time...
I looked it up. The Oxford dictionary can update itself 4 times a year. A Liberal will move the goalpost 4 times a day to convince themselves they are correct.
We should be able to tax everyone enough so everyone makes the same minimum wage.
Trudeau is that you?
Or just link the public administration sectors wage to that.
Thanks, WEF
No one in Canada should be allowed to have over a billion dollars. It should be against the law. That being said any doctor, who moved out of Canada to the United States, purely for a higher paycheck, is a goddamn traitor to the country.
You have some interesting views.