Posts Tagged ‘tax’
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Got a problem? Privatize it (and pay the price for selling off Hydro One later).
Hydro One’s financial statements show earnings of between nine and 11 per cent since its inception… Currently that revenue helps pay for hospitals, schools, and other public services… Why sell off a valuable asset with guaranteed returns of nine to 11 per cent per year when you can borrow that money for less than three per cent per year? Because it is a crown corporation, Hydro One doesn’t pay taxes to the federal government, instead, a payment in lieu of taxes is retained by our province.
Tags: budget, ideology, privatization, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Small companies the main casualties of higher corporate taxes
… most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) pay corporate taxes, and these are often the most vulnerable in a shaky economy… the larger the company, the more sophisticated is its army of tax lawyers and accountants. That gives them the edge in reducing their tax exposure… It’s the individuals who run the corporations that can veer into ethical and moral grey areas – and it’s their personal income levels that create issues of income inequality.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Ontario budget continues hard line on health care in bid to tackle deficit
… a fourth straight year a freeze on hospitals’ base operating budgets, and… a hard line against the province’s doctors… [they] have left local boards and administrators to make the difficult choices necessary to balance their budgets, insulating the government from the blow-back when hospitals cut beds, wards or staff… They have made caring for patients at home – instead of in expensive hospitals and nursing homes – the cornerstone of their ongoing transformation of the health-care system.
Tags: budget, Health, mental Health, standard of living, tax
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
How not to fight income inequality
… according to a recent report for the MacDonald Laurier Institute by Philip Cross, former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada, Canada already has a highly progressive system of income redistribution. Taxes, however, are only part of the picture: the real issue is transfers… The report concludes: “… Instead of focusing on modifying taxes and transfers to redistribute income, it would be better to adopt policies that boost market incomes for all classes.”
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
How the Great Gatsby model of social mobility fails in Canada
… policy should be directed at… skills development, availability of extended health care benefits, disability benefits, children’s benefits, affordable child care, effective employment services, and comprehensive unemployment insurance. Funding some of these needs… through a more progressive tax system, which would include not imposing unacceptably high marginal effective tax rates on the poorest people as the current system does, would not only improve social mobility but also reduce income inequality.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Silence of the charities
The CRA’s rules around what constitutes “political activity” are murky and confusing; there is little transparency about how those rules are applied; charities subject to audit often have to spend precious resources putting together documents for auditors and providing legal training for staff; and most important, many charities are self-censoring for fear of breaching the 10 per cent rule and facing shutdown by the CRA.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
NDP and Liberals could use Joe Oliver’s good-news budget to their advantage
… most [popular new measures] aren’t expected to cost the federal treasury much money… most of Oliver’s new promises are so inexpensive that, this year at least, they will be more than offset by government plans to squeeze an additional $900 million from public servants… Both opposition parties say they’d end that tax break… If that $2 billion is added to Oliver’s projected surplus, both opposition parties could plausibly claim that, if elected, they would have $3.4 billion to spend this year on useful projects.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Canada 2015: A remarkable economic transformation
Today’s federal debt-to-GDP ratio is roughly 30 per cent. In international circles, fiscal prudence has become nearly as Canadian as the maple leaf. Despite the remarkable improvement in many parts of Canadian economic life, we still have our share of challenges. Rising health costs from an aging population, a shortage of critical infrastructure, increasing costs from climate change and rising income inequality are four big ones.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
The federal government doesn’t owe Ontario, Alberta, more money
True, it’s odd that Ontario, a province considered a have-not for equalization remains a net contributor to federal coffers. But that’s the equalization calculation. It doesn’t mean that Ontario should receive more federal money. For the record, transfers between governments are a poor idea. When one government taxes citizens but hands a portion to another government, the accountability lines between voters and the governments that tax them become blurred.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Federal budget a triumph of tax madness
They increased yearly federal spending well above the inflation rate. They cut taxes, especially the goods and services tax by one point, then another, at a cost to the treasury of a little more than $12-billion. They put some money into debt reduction… imported from Republican ideology in the United States… the idea is to shrink the state’s capacity to act by politically popular tax cuts and spending reductions.
The Conservatives have figured out that the opposition parties are too scared to oppose the vast majority of the tax cuts
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Recent Comments