Posts Tagged ‘tax’

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Pierre Poilievre’s vision for Canada: Heaven for the very rich and squat for everyone else

Friday, June 14th, 2024

… the real redistribution in recent years hasn’t been the small bit directed toward benefits for ordinary Canadians but rather the gush of money toward the wealthiest Canadians. In 2021, the richest .01 per cent saw their incomes grow on average by a stunning 30 per cent to $12.5 million a year, while the incomes of 14 million working Canadians actually declined, according to Statistics Canada.

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Inside the Campaign to Kill a Step Toward Tax Fairness

Monday, June 10th, 2024

… interest groups don’t have to offer an alternative and can just snipe at proposals that they dislike. The capital gains change is expected to bring in more than $19 billion over the next five years. Anti-tax groups don’t need to explain where that money should come from, or what services should be cut if the tax is axed… But the process is a warning about the powerful forces that will battle any move to increase tax fairness, if it means the rich will pay more.

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Canada’s shift to a more regressive tax system, 2004 to 2022

Thursday, May 9th, 2024

Taxation of the wealthiest is a central means to reduce inequality, provide adequate shared public infrastructure and services that benefit all, and create opportunities for all to live a decent life… Despite the progressive personal income tax system, when we look at all taxes and income, the tax system is only moderately progressive at the bottom, flat through the middle and regressive at the top.

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Wealthy Canadians get huge tax breaks, even with budget changes to capital gains

Thursday, April 25th, 2024

The tax system is much tougher on working people, who make up the vast majority of Canadians, including almost everyone in the lower and middle class. Working people pay taxes on their full working incomes, with few exemptions, and their taxes are deducted before they even receive their paycheques. Then there are those who own capital — stocks, bonds and other property… “A buck is a buck is a buck.” The budget’s tax changes are a small but important step in that direction.

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We are rich Canadians and we support higher capital gains taxes

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024

Ottawa wants to raise taxes for Canada’s ultra-rich. Rich people like us want that, too… with 1 per cent of the country’s residents holding over a quarter of all wealth. We need higher taxes to level out this rising wealth inequality… to fund new spending on priorities like Old Age Security, clean economy, medical care, child care, and housing, but it doesn’t go far enough to address class distortions… we’d also like to see a “super wealth tax,” an inheritance tax, and progressive property taxes

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Trudeau would be wise to raise the GST to 7 per cent instead of reforming the capital gains tax

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024

… the GST has underwritten Canada’s social safety net for more than 30 years. In 2006… the GST accounted for 30.6 per cent of all federal tax revenue… Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and finance minister Chrystia Freeland have sought refuge in progressive populism with their plan to expand the capital gains tax. But the sustainable policy choice would be to put those two points back on the GST.

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Liberals tax the rich, but not enough to be considered populist

Thursday, April 18th, 2024

… in recent decades, business interests have strong-armed governments into redesigning the marketplace to favour their own interests, through tax and regulatory changes, and the rewriting of labour laws to disempower workers. These “neo-liberal” changes haven’t brought us the productivity gains that were promised, but they have made us a much less equal society… We need to reverse the “neo-liberal” policies that are responsible for such extreme inequality.

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Liberal budget hits a home run on housing, but plays small ball on care economy

Wednesday, April 17th, 2024

Here are three ways federal small ball could deliver big results without big spends in the coming months: Child care Workforce Deals… with a focus on workforce attraction and retention… tracking trends in the investments occurring in our long-term care, child care and health-care sectors… examining ways of putting new guardrails on public funding… Care services such as child care, long-term care, medical or dental community clinics can be a built-in feature of new housing and infrastructure developments.

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Federal government goes big on housing—is it enough?

Wednesday, April 17th, 2024

2024 federal budget makes biggest investments in housing, care economy in generations with its second-to-last budget before an election… “This government has done more for housing than previous, more recent federal governments…” it will impose a higher tax on capital gains above $250,000 a year… “While the pharmacare program is still quite limited in scope… Combined with dental care, the confidence and supply agreement has driven major changes in the health care landscape in a very short period of time.”

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Democracy Is Under Siege Globally. Canada Is Being Tested

Monday, April 8th, 2024

Finkelstein preached that you didn’t need a vision to win in politics, just good polling that revealed what people were against. Once that was established, the goal became tying the unpopular thing — immigration, carbon tax, inflation — to a flesh and blood political “enemy.” … The idea was to avoid talking about your own positions and policies, the better to demonize your opponent. The objective was not to sell yourself but rather to destroy your opponent…  repeating simplistic slogans… “Axe the tax.” “Not worth the price.” “Everything is broken.” 

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