Jerry J. Fortin

More drivel. The entire point was the difference in how natural citizens are treated compared to legal citizens in terms of tax fairness. The reality is such that business pays a lower marginal rate to begin with. They have more deductions available to them and in fact pay less in tax as a percentage of their income. That is the long and the short of it. Take an equal amount of income for an employee and a small business now who would pay more in tax? That is the point. Don't dance around the reality, just stick to the facts. I made up a little story to illustrate the point, and was there any errors in the little story, I don't think so. So lets talk about tax fairness. You obviously have a business, good for you. You also obviously deduct many little interesting expenses, some of which you damned well know are not available to individuals but are available to you because you have a business. You are a person as I am and the government treats us two people in a different manner over the same thing, that is unfair. That is the point. Of course it gets worse. As individuals, the higher income earners have access to more deductions than lower ones. That is not exactly fair either. The point is the entire system is designed to extract a revenue stream from citizens. It does not cater to the group that does not lobby for changes, in fact it caters to the group that does. The tax code was at one time far less complex and far more fair. As it currently stands it has been monkeyed with for the last 8 or 9 decades to reduce the tax load on individuals and groups that could afford to spend the time and effort to engage in an interaction with government for specific benefit. They have realized that benefit at the expense of the citizens. Now remember that I am no lover of income tax. That is probably because I believe the government treats me like pond scum compared to the lot of business. Tax is supposed to be a burden society undertakes to provide programs and services for its citizens. It is not supposed to be a means of extracting a citizens hard earned money. My hangup with the system starts there. Individuals deal with witholding taxes, but business does not, is that fair? We pay tax payday by payday and then have to try and reclaim it at the end of the year. Business deduct their expenses all year long and then pay a much smaller percentage of their total income at the end of the year. This provides a far greater degree of freedom and access to earned or realized capital than a citizen that is employed can ever hope for. I guess my biggest hangup with the tax system is that the entire concept of small business is a farce. They are receiving tax benefits not available to individual citizens. The basic flaw of the system is how employees are treated. As a small business owner you are no doubt aware of the very real differences here. I can't hire my son to cut the grass and deduct this expense. If I ran a business out of my house I could. Would I have to pay tax on the sale of my home then, sure I would, but not until I sell it and make a profit from that sale. Even then the tax is deferred to a later date of my choice. Meanwhile the business run out of my home is bringing in money that has a reduced amount of taxation applied to it. That is not fair. The most entertaining thing about taxes is how those small business operators look down at the folks doing the real work in this nation and tell us that we don't understand the system or how it works. We know how it works, we get screwed and you folks don't. We don't like it. The situation is rapidly degrading to the point that citizens are beginning to contemplate the concept of tax revolt. The current system is serving the purpose of creating a class based society, and that little fact is slowly becoming realized by the majority of the public. All because of taxes and greed. Its not envy on the part of the workers that is fueling this discontent, just the desire to be treated equally because we are not.

I have never before read so much utter drivel. Not all business is small business is it? Not all small business is sole proprietorship is it? There are huge tax savings for BUSINESS, whether it is small a small business for someone to work out of their home, or a large business on the scale of a multi-national corporation. Lets talk about how these things can be equated with personal income tax. They can't be, end of conversation. Now lets discuss how different these two different things really are. Expenses of employment are not generally deductible, expenses of business generally are. Based on that basic concept alone, the employee faces a disadvantage when calculating taxes. From that point forward in calculations the situation degrades for individuals. It is designed to be that way. A person can become a small business owner for relatively few dollars. Once there all sorts of nice things can happen to them. Lets say the business was that of a travel agent. First you will need an office, so lets develop the basement of the house and use it as an office. Suddenly you get to write off the amount of square footage for the office as a business expense. So the development cost is 100% deductible. Now you have a place to work in that instantly keep the cost of the development free from taxation. The next step is to buy some phone equipment and a computer, 100% deductible. Now you have a place to work and the tools you need to get the job done. You will need a vehicle to go buy supplies and meet customers, so you go and lease a car, 100% deductible. Car insurance 100% deductible, gas 100% deductible, parking 100% deductible, maintenance 100% deductible. You use your deductible phone to setup an appointment with a potential client. You arrange a meeting at a local cafe. but the lunch is only 50% deductible! Thats okay because you ate steak for free and the client was charged for the service of buying the lunch as part of the contract price. You sell a dream vacation to the client, provided that you can prove that the hotel is great, the food is to die for and the service was good. So you drive home in your deductible car, go downstairs in your deductible office and break out your deductible computer. You quickly go onto the internet and find what you are looking for, so you take out your company credit card with its tax deductible high interest rates and book a quick tax deductible flight to Costa Rica. You call the limo company and get a tax deductible ride to the airport. You hop on the plane and fly south. Once there you call a tax deductible cab to get to your hotel package. You check into the all inclusive place and pay up front with your deductible credit card. First step is to get to your room and call the front desk, and see if there is a shop on site to pick up a few needed items. Of course there is! So down you go to the shop and buy a new swimsuit, a fresh suit, a nifty new digital camcorder and a laptop, thank god they are all tax deductible. You quickly race to your room and change, its lunch time. You need to get to the food place and checkout the available options, and of course film it for your potential customer. After lunch you return to your room and transfer the recording to your laptop. You then plug into the internet and email that pesky client. As it turns out, the client got a better deal on E-Bay, so you lose the deal and are out of pocket for those expenses. You call your accountant when you get home and he tells you not to worry, we can show it as a loss and get a tax credit for it. Meanwhile you finished the basement, scored a bunch of neat furniture, and bought a car. You had a vacation, ate like a king and had a great time. All legally tax deductible. Now why is it that this kind of thing can happen? As the business get bigger and better the perks and opportunities increase. Tell me I am wrong about this, then you can tell me what legitimate expenses are. The citizen gets screwed so the business can make money, and some say that the system isn't fair. Go figure.

You need to understand that I think income taxes should be eliminated altogether. Now after having said that, the existing system of taxation could at least be made more equitable for all concerned. Lets look at reducing loopholes for a minute. Those loopholes are not available to everyone because they are very carefully designed to be income specific. In other words the more you make the greater your deductions are. Do you agree or disagree with that statement? Why are not the income taxes applied equally to all concerned. A business can have a car to use for work and that business gets to write off all of the expenses for it from their gross incomes. A citizen that needs a car to get to work cannot do the same thing, why is that? A citizen can take a potential employer to lunch in an attempt to gain an employment contract, but they can't write it off their taxes. That same employer the next week can invite the potential employee to lunch to tell them he got the job and then the employer can write off the expense. Why is that? A business can build a house to use as an office and have employees work out of that office. They can write off that office as an expense. Citizens can't write off their mortgages. Why is that? The system is skewed toward business, any fool understands that. My point isn't that we need the rich or business sections to pay for the poor, but instead we level the playing field to make what is good for the goose good for the gander. The current approach is discrimatory to say the least.

The government of Canada could start to reduce the level of taxation for families. They are in the greatest need, and this also serves the purpose of increasing the standard of living for the lowest income brackets and works toward eliminating childhood poverty. For openers, use the poverty line for individuals as a baseline computation for family members, and make that the basic deduction. This will not be cheap to do, but it must be done. The way to offset the reduced revenue stream is to close loopholes for upper brackets and business. The first thing to go should be entertainment expenses and political contributions for business. If the government wants to be seen acting in the interests of citizens they could start with that.

In this particular case history is meaningless. The present reality has the only relevance. First of all, its none of our business. Secondly, its their business. Thirdly people should mind their own business. The reality of events can be summarized in this manner. Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews. After the war the rest of the world allowed the Jews a homeland in sympathy. People were displaced and there was another war. The Arabs never did welcome their unfortunate Palestine displaced peoples, just as we did not welcome the Jews before the war. We had to make amends for that, now the Arabs must follow suit. It is because they have not that we have this international problem. The important thing to remember is that it isn't our problem. We cannot solve that problem, only they can solve the problem. If it is a fight they want, then let them fight. If it is peace they want then let them make peace. War or peace are the alternatives, and neither is a decision that can be made for them.

Tax this, tax that, tax us to death. The government lives out of our pockets. Any reductions are a threat to their existence. Don't expect the governments to reduce their taxes. Any reduction a human sees is off set by an increase elsewhere. If citizens want real tax reductions they need to reduce the expense of government first. What we should be asking is where can we make substantial cuts to achieve this. There is another alternative, its called a consumption tax.

I cannot vote WRAP for reasons I have already mentioned, even if there was a candidate in my riding. I simple don't trust them, they have not earned my trust. I will not vote PC, and both the NDP and Liberals out here don't impress me much. I am hoping for an independent candidate to appear, and if none show up I will vote Green just to piss everybody else off.

Capitalism and socialism are not the end all to our social systems. The simple reality is that we have yet to devise a system of government for our society that is beneficial to all. The current system that we live in provides opportunity and wealth at the cost of time and family. I see this as a relevant statement in as much as there truly is a COST involved. Society as we know and understand it in the western or capitalistic world is far different from the concepts of society in for instance China. Whether we agree or disagree with their form of society is of no importance because that society WILL dominate our own within decades, unless we change. Our search for wealth and prosperity has taken us this far, but surely this isn't all that there is in this life. Humankind is administered by individuals who are accountable only at specific times under specific situations such as elections and revolutions. Until our politics can catch up to our society we are condemned to repeat our mistakes. Keeping in mind that both China and India have existed as countries for thousands of years and they have experienced all known forms of government, what would lead folks to believe anything but the fact of their survival is founded upon their ability to adapt. There is a lesson in that and we need to understand it. We are now at a point in our evolution of society where communication is possible without the need for government sanction. We can talk to each other, that is very important. Talk is how we deal with things peacefully. When we don't talk things are not so peacefull, LOOK AT YOUR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS TO SEE THE TRUTH IN THIS STATEMENT. Governments in general are the root of our problems. Nationality and demographics, religions and races are all blind to communications. So how is it that we cannot learn from this? The answer is governments and power. Money has profound impact on individuals but political power has far more. Has anyone ever met a poor politician? Do not all politicians retire wealthy? What is the relationship there? Our society must evolve or face catastrophic consequences, as all societies have over the ages. Empires rise, but when they fall people die. The search for enlightened governance must begin soon, before it is too late.

It is a fringe party, that is all it will ever be. Very far to the right, far enough to make the PC party look like liberal socialists. They seem to be well funded, at least that is their claim. I would be willing to bet that it is corporate funding or gifts in kind that fuel the party. There is interest in the party from small and large business but they ca't even beat the NDP in the support of us lower class worker types. They seem to be elitist in much of their thinking. I don't see much hope for them actually. They will split the right wing vote, that isn't a bad thing because it may serve to hurt the PC's and that can't be a bad thing. There will be little more than single digit support for these folks.

Fear not because I am an avid Alberta separatist and I do agree we need to tell Ottawa to "Bite me". But that was not my point, I was suggesting that the lack of visionary leadership has delivered us to this point in the road. Don't misunderstand your taxes. Transfer payments come out of your personal tax load. The province itself pays nothing unless you look at educational and health care transfers. It is the citizen that pays, there is only one real tax payer. Since it doesn't cost the province the bastards will not lift a finger to help us. Great leadership has a high price, and it is a price our politicians can't or won't make. The reality is that we can claw back much of those transfers from the feds. We can opt out of lots of fed programs and we can change a lot of legislation to read that we get paid first and then transfer the left overs to Ottawa. We can collect all taxes in Alberta and remit what is left after deductions to Ottawa. Our province can do these things legally within the current framework of the law. It is our leaders in politics that haven't the balls or the brains to do it. That is why I suggest we need a different sort of political party in Alberta. One neither left nor right. One that has a single agenda of improving the human condition of Alberta citizens. That means getting the government off or backs and out of our pockets. When was the last time a law was repealed? They pass laws all the time but never take the old ones off the books! The government representatives see through a one way mirror, they stare at themselves and talk to hear themselves speak. They are little more than trough hogs, fed at public expense. Alberta needs a party of citizens that are willing to preform public service, not fill their pockets at public expense. What we need is different than what we have.

Alberta needs a political party of a different sort. What we need is a group of individuals who would dare to dream. Forget the politics and economics, look at society and see what actually needs to get done. If we are the richest province how is it that we don't have the best of everything? Its time to make a public agenda of infrastructure and development of secondary industry. We need to move forward despite the past and in spite of the present. As it stands we are merely digging a hole in the sand.

Canada's role in this conflict is under intensive political review. The government has some decisions to make that could trigger an election. I find ity interesting that we have come to this point by the means that we have. It is a sad commentary on where we now find ourselves. The Afgan nation has severe problems, we were part of some of the causes of those problems. That leaves us responsible for some of the solutions. As a nation we need to realize our place in this world. We need to define what our political position should be in terms of international affairs. We can either take an active partnership role with the UN and or the USA, the two have conflicting agendas and we need to realize that. There is another alternative, that is going it alone. That would be my first choice. Canada should be a neutral influence providing humanitarian assistance but avoiding political positioning that would see us entrapped in the mistakes of others. We should reserve the right to act of our own interests. In my view Canada should withdraw from military combat operations and return to our role of peace keepers. The only way to find peace for the Afgan people is to quit killing them and start helping them to rebuild. I think we should pick a place in that nation to call our own sphere of influence and begin a process of providing defensive and economic aid to the citizens. Mark out some territory and defend its perimeter. Rebuild or create infrastructure in the centre of this territory and begin to create an acceptable standard of living. Canada can provide "our living standards" in terms of creating a health care system and an educational system. Governance is a matter left to their own citizens, which we sure support and assist within our defined sphere of influence.

The problem with the WRAPer's is that they have policies, and they have beliefs. The two don't jive. Their VP for policy is 100% against their health care policy. He equates that to a personal choice on his part, he just disagrees with the "majority". The leadership contenders in the Alberta Alliance Party were all anti abortion and wanted to see provincial funding removed for the procedure. But that isn't what their policy says. It is this kind of thing that makes them more than questionable in terms of believability. Even so they are laying claim to being the one "true" conservative party in the province and are gaining support. Not enough to make a difference in my opinion. What they are really accomplishing is splitting the right wing vote. Alberta is a political wilderness because of the lack of visionary leadership. There will be another Progressive Conservative government in the Alberta Legislature after March 3 2008. Their majority will be reduced by some small number, but their place is reserved. It will take time for the citizens of Alberta to find an alternative, Mason isn't it, and neither is Taft.

Taxes have no function other than as a revenue stream for the government. Those who desire the government to tax and spend enslave the entire population to this antiquated financially oppressive method. Income tax needs to be repealed on the grounds of its infringement upon our citizens disposable income. If we are to be a free trading consumer society then the government is impeding our ability to compete in that market by unfairly restricting our disposable family incomes with taxation.

Let me state very clearly something that may surprise and shock folks. China is developing far faster than most people think. The growth in GDP is only a hint of the reality. Their science and technology is what should concern us. Look at their space program, look at the new fighter jets they are producing. Look at their military capability as it stands today, then multiply that by ten. I say ten because that is the right number to use when you want to find out how many armed men can be called up at a moments notice when you crack into their trained reservists. The point is that we are looking at a window of opportunity. Within a few short years, they cannot be stopped.

The Conservatives called for the inquiry, now the job needs to get done. Mulroney wanted it too. Now they can reap the whirlwind. Let the chips fall where they may.

Yes it did, the USA won the first war ever fought with dollar bills. It bankrupted the USSR and ended the Cold War. If you have enough money you can do darned near anything. Just ask O.J.

I think the folks there should build the power plant and start making some money for themselves. Perhaps even get off of the revolving welfare system that First Nations seem to be stuck on.

Your point is what? Germany and Russia were allies right until Hitler invaded them. Like I said the US and Russia just don't know they are allies, YET.

It was an error that was not caught by the person responsible for making sure the plane is safe to travel, the pilot. While he was declared a hero for his valiant effort in saving the plane folks need to remember that the pilot was at the extreme end of a logistics train wreck. He was the last line of defense.

I will wade into the discussion and suggest that Russia and the US of A are actually allies, they just know it yet. The real threat is China. There is 1/3 of the worlds population looking for resources for their industrial development in that nation. When they create sufficient productive capacity they will dominate the economic situation in the world. As their net worth increases they will be consuming more and more goods. Most people can see where this will lead............

I didn't vote for him in the first place. Actually my point was that in fact he is guilty of a violation. Now what that translates into in terms of criminal law I have no idea. I would think that it would at least forced him to repay the 2 million he got from the government. At best perhaps a fine would be leveled against him. Which takes us to his tax records, any transgression there could prove to be expensive for him.

Canada can be a dangerous place, that is a fact. On the other hand in my view there are lots of places in this world more dangerous. Weather poses a threat to the outdoors types. and clubs pose a danger to the indoors types. That applies all over the world and here is no different at all. I would suggest that it is a matter of relative perspective. It depends where you are and what you are doing. Doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time will only yield consequences that are undesirable.

From my perspective Mulroney solicited employment from Schrieber. He did so while sitting as Prime Minister. That fact that no money changed hands while he was a Prime Minister does little to diminish the clear violation of the ethics codes in place at the time.

Or McCain.................