Renegade

Yeah I could, but I highly doubt that it should take 2700 pages of reading to answer a relatively simple question. I don't think it is accurate to say that the family spends the money. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you mean that the decisions to spend the money are made by the family rather than the individual constitutents. But so what? Our income tax is constructed on who earns the money, not who spends it. Would you consider a single parent with kids a "family" who should aggreate income for tax purposes? What about a single individual, is that a family of one? I'm not against taxing family income so long as all families are considered as a single economic unit, and there is not discrimmination based upon the make-up of the family. IOW, a 2-parent family with kids should not be treated any differently than a single-parent, than a single individual, as according to the premis, each i an economic unit. Yes I dislike pension-splitting because it is a discrimminatory benefit awarded a narrow tax-paying group for political purposes.

I'm unclear on what you mean as being "mostly transparent" to the investor. Certainly an investor is aware the corporation pays tax. And certainly it impacts the investor because otherwise the dvidend would be larger. That is specificly why investors were attracted to income trusts. I suppose that depends upon what you mean by "substantially". Under the current tax structure I generally agree, the tax impact is minimal. Under what you are proposing however, the tax impact would be considerable. As with the investor, the participants in a marriage are aware (or should be) of the tax implications of a marriage. Why give certain households a tax-break simply because they pool income? I agree with you that there is inconsistancy between how income is regarded for benefits vs tax and that should be rectified. IMV eiither benefits should be calculated based upon individual income or income tax should be taxed upon family income. BTW, family income is different than income splitting. Personally I would favour a flat-tax no-exemption, minimal dedcuction system.

Sure, but what you also took into consideration when yu bought the stock, is the favourable treatment of dividends. It is disingenuous to think otherwise. If you truly feel that all income should be treated equally, then you should also favour dividend income being only taxed once in the same way the income trust structure previously allowed. Let me ask if your logic of what investor "took into consideration when you bought the stock", extends to family income. Afterall a single-income earner, took the tax rates it into consideration when he married a non-working spouse or when that spouse stopped working, right? I wish I knew of a caclculation of the exact amount which overall goes to the government, but given that the government gets a cut of whatever is paid as income or when it is spent, as long as it stays in the country, you are right that the government gets a huge slice.

You miss the fact that dividends are give a reduced tax rate because they are double taxed. They are first taxed as corporate income, they are then taxed again when they are passed on to the shareholder. Should the overall tax paid to the government depend upon who earns the income? If a maid cleans the house should the same income which has already been taxed, be taxed again if the work is delegated to someone else. One good way to distribute wealth (without coercion) is to exempt from taxation the amount which is paid to another individual who will then declare it as income. For example if one pays a maid $20,000 a year for domestic services, then the payor should be able to deduct that amount off their income. Not only does it encourage the delegation of work in a more efficient manner, it keeps everything over the table and encourages the voluntary distribution of wealth.

It is pointless to post this link because it is inaccessable to anyone who doesn't have a facebook id, furthermore even if you do have a facebook id, the content is only avalable with permission.

Some should, some shouldn't. The ones that should have made assessmets of the risks involved in having kids and have agreed to undertake the responsibilites in being a parent. You make the best of whatever circumstances and environment you are born into. I agree that an insurance scheme is necessary. Even with "good" parents there are risks which need to be mitigated. Where we may diverge is in who assumes the cost of insurance. The parents have made the decision, so they should assume the cost of the insurance premium, at least until such time the child is able to assume the cost of the premium themselves. In addition the cost of the premium should be commensurate with the risk being insured against. To use your analogy of the car accidents, yes some car accidents are unavoidable, however we should expect that the car operator is the one who pays the insurance premium because they are the ones which made the decision and accepted the responsibilty to operate the vehicle. IOW, insurance isn't the issue, it is in the amount of the premium and who pays which is the issue. If parents aren't the ones paying the premium, they are simply offloading the cost of their decisions onto someone else. Why would they even make responsible decisions if they aren't forced to bear the cost of those decisions.

I'd be interested in seeing those mathematical arguments you reference. Of course I agree that tax policy can be use to entice behaviours which produce wider effects to the economy but is that even the reason to tax? It is impossible to dispute what is "fair" because unless everyone has an agreed on definition of what "fairness" is, "fair" remains a subjective term. All you have reasonablly deduced is that wealth redistribution may be preventative to criminality. What you do not show is that it more economically efficient to placate the ecomomically desparate than to to invest in reacting to the criminality. For example if in order to preserve social and economic order it cost $1B investment in law and order, or alternatively $20B of wealth redistributon, is it not better to spend the funds on law and order? The fact is it is impossible to know ALL the reasons behind income generation. There are a multitude of factors some of whch (such as luck) which are beyond anyone's control, but it is pretty much impossible to prove one way or another. In some cases it is easy to show correlation between income and government investment, however in other cases there may be no apparent link. I think since you made the claim of such justificaiton, the onus would lie with you to prove the link between the two rather than ask me to prove that there is no link. Of course, it is not always possible or practical to measure usage, but I would say that when usage is measurable and it is practical, user fees should be used as the mechanism for raising revenue. Yes they do have a valid argument. If schools were funded from "user fees", the senior would have paid their share of fees while their kids were attending. As far as someone who had no kids, they would only pay the cost of schooling indirectly, by purchasing the cost of services of someone who has been educated.

IMO, it is not a principle upon which the tax system is base. It is a poliitcally correct justification being used by the tax system administrators to extort as much as they can. Those software engineers and other professionals made a free trade of their services for pay with Bill Gates. Bill Gates net worth is a result of making successful free trades with his employees and his customers. It makes no difference if his wealth is accumulated through his personal efforts in developing the software or through shrewd trades, in either case, he EARNED it. You assume that the only principle in the tax system is "ability to pay". It is not. There are many other factors including collectability, and impact. If for example the captial gains tax were increased significantly, it becomes more attractive for investors to invest somewhere else outside Canada. The net result maybe an outflow of capital, regardless of how "fair" you think the increase is.

My bad. Ignore the thread.

It would seem that Norway has for some time now, adopted a system where women have been allocated quotas for participation in government and business. Women in Norwegian politics Such a system seems to run counter to meritocracy which is what most people would consider fair. Do women, many of whom have been fighing to be considered equals, think such a system which blatently discrimminates in their favour should be adopted?

Visionseeker, it is interesting justifications you propose, however I'd like to see some backup that the suppositions are true. For example, how do we know that wealth redistribution is a better mechanism for mitigating social upheaval then investing in police forces. Why for example are there societies like Hong Kong which do very little wealth restribution but yet doesn't seem in danger of social upheaval. Your other justification is that the benefit is somehow the result of state expenditures and investments. How do you know? Perhaps in some cases it is true, but there maybe others where the state had nothing to do with income generated. It would seem that the more sensible way for the state to make wise expenditures and invesments is to charge for use of that infrastructure so that beneficiaries are the ones who pay back the state's outlay.

First, how do you know all Indians do so or are you prone to sweeping generalizations which assume that the behaviour of some individuals can be assigned to the group at large? Second, how is that even relevant? What another group does or doesn't do doesn't excuse one's own behaviour. Everybody, even Europeans, can have the luxury of being hypocritical in pronouncing their "pride" but nobody, not even Europeans, should be exempt from having that hypocracy being called out.

Interestingly this report examines the perspective from one side of the participants in healtcare; that of the healthcare consumer. Why not also factor in the perspective from the healthcare providers, and those who fund healthcare. I suppose we would all only buy Lexus, BMWs, and Mercedes if all we cared about was the end product and had no care for other factors.

WDW, I assume by "white pride" pride in European white culture rather than pride in your skin colour. Odd that you feel a "need" to have pride in a culture of your ancestors, but disavow any actions you don't think are pride-worthy because you didn't personally partake in them.

I disagree with you, Rue, and Leafless. Simply put, morals and the determination of "right" and "wrong" are subjective personal choices. Even if YOU don't have a moral code which uses "harm" as a means of determining morality, it doesn't mean that Drea is incorrect if she does. There is no correct answer. What is moral for one person is immoral for the other. You are correct that it is not only "harm" which is a determining factor for law, but for laws which don't prevent "harm" there must be some other compelling justitication.

Personifying "society" is a cop-out. Who exactly is "society" and how exactly is it"hurt"?

How do you know? Obviously it is not in the mandate of criminal law so this is just a conclusion you have come to. My belief, and I have no proof, is that what you say is only indirectly correct. Incest has made its way into criminal law simply because historically have always had a instinctive revulsion to it, without really knowing why. Nature and selective breeding has probably cultivated this instinctive revulsion in order to preserve genetic diversity.

It is difficult to know if rural roads are subsidized or not because as far as I am aware the Province doesn't show the funding for roads in a way that makes it transparent where the funding is coming from. Besides a vehicle and drivers registration, other sources of funds are gasoline taxes, and general income, sales, and other taxes. To address your question, it is irrelevant if there are only 2 roads, 1 road, or no roads at all. If ther are only 2 roads, it makes those roads all the more valuable to the users and of course they should see the value of paying for those roads. If they are looking to fund new road development, why should non-users be required to fund roads they don't see much (if any) benefit from?

Rue, good post. That may be true, but nowhere in our criminal law is there a mandate to maximize genetic diversity and minimize genetic defects. Nature already does a good job of creating a feeling of disgust in mating with close relatives. Why would we think nature needs any help from criminal law? Here the problem though. There are massive inconsistancies in society using this as justiticaiton. It is not criminal for the CEO to have sex with his secretary if both are willing participants. In many cases there is preexisting relationships and power imbalance. What about a rich-poor marriage? Even there there is a power imbalance. Yet we trust that adults can make their own decisions without criminal penalty.

Melanie, good post. I'm not sure I agree with your asessment on the general reactio to a relationship between adopted siblings. While I think if people were rational they would be accepted, but on this issue people are far more emotional than rational and would likely shun them. I suspect many people shun Woody Allen and Soon Yi Previn today.

Er no. Rights are inherent to the individual. They are not given by governments or majorities, they are simply acknowledged. Let me quote from the same source: Human Rights That is not completely true. Any majority which did not respect the rights of the minorities could not call rightly itself a democracy. In fact in cases where the majority severely abused the minority, they were accountable to the international community who brought them up on war crimes. (Bosnia, Nazi Germany) But outrageous things DO happen when the majority will is let run amok. There are many examples of this. Majority vote doesn't give people uncondtional power, at least not in our democracy or in most modern democracies. Because there is a big difference between the charter and legislation. The charter guarantees certain rights which sets the bounds for any legislation. It does not replace legislation. Creation of that legislation is what governments are needed for. Fair for who? --------------------------------- blueblood, As much as I enjoy this discussion, it is getting so far removed from the original topic that I have to curtail any further responses in this thread. If you want to continue this discssion it will have to be in a new thread.

Since you seem to believe that the quality of Canadian goods is superior, why do you object to Canadian goods competing without any barriers? If people indeed prefer cost over quality, it would seem to be an indication that Canadian manufacturers are not in tune with their customers preferences. That argument makes as much sense as hiring your freeloading brother-in-law, even though he does a crappy job and needs to be paid twice as much, just so you don't have to give him a handout. How about we just stop the handouts instead?

If your position is that "the majority is always right and TS for anyone else who doesn't agree", then why bother having a Charter or Bill of Rights, or Constitution? Afterall the majority can just do what it pleases, when it pleases, without the inconvenience of being held to a set of principles. The system you describe is not democracy at all. It is more accurately referred to as "mob-rule". You have pointed to the US as one example of a democracy. I then refer to the US govennment web-site to describe what a democracy is: What Is Democracy? More specificly: It would appear that your version of democracy only includes majority rule but excludes the rest. More reading for you: Majority Rule, Minority Rights The court interprets law. You don't like a supreme court decision, you elect a government to change the law or get enough support to change the Charter, or whatever is the basis of that decision.

Southern Ontario And I don't know any of the three highways which go to Northern Ontario because I don't have occasion to visit Northern Ontario.

I'm not familiar with that highway. In any case IMV the best way to allocate cost of a road (or any transportation system) is based upon usage. In the case of highway 11, users (if they payed based upon use of the highway) would have to determine if the additional cost was worth the time and expense saved over other routes.