Saturn

Mr. Flaherty had to find the cash to offer income-splitting for seniors. He figured that far fewer seniors would lose from taxing income trusts than would benefit from income splitting, so overall he made a lot more people happy than unhappy. In addition to the income trust loophole should have been closed years ago and it had to be done eventually. Those who claim that income trusts were not a significant leak on tax revenues and did not have a negative impact on capital markets, well, have another drink!

The problem is that immigrants and refugees are two very different groups and Israelis can be immigrants but not refugees. Unless in your opinion Israel is some third world country run by a brutal dictatorship that imprisons and kills people for their political views.

Simple. Primarily gypsies, who figure they'll be accepted because we all know that gypsies are persecuted for their black eyes. What's interesting here is not the number of refugee claimants but their success rate. I can't imagine why Israelis have a 31% success rate. Maybe they are all gypsies too

Some Manitobans think they should be built in Manitoba.I say build them in China if it's cheaper and the quality is good. Final Assembly for aircraft this large is not done in canada. remember C 17 globemaster is a large aircraft, I suppose some stuff like avionics or landing gear and such will be done here, but it all is shipped to the large assembly hangers in the states. Part of the cost is a 20 year maintenance contract i beleive. And we do need to be able to resupply ourselves, right now we lease russian or american aircraft to airlift large cargo. And renting aircraft costs us less than buying our own. Now why do we need cheaper planes from China when the most cost-effective option is to rent planes when needed and let others take care of the maintenance and risk involved?

How about Calgary Southwest? Would that make Dion happy? Did you read the article? Is Calgary Southwest held by the PQ?

The NDP are a bunch of wusses - they are shitting in their pants that if an election is called in the next few months, they will get 2 seats. However, I'm not sure that the NDP are the one's that are pushing this "alliance". We all know that if the NDP vote collapses, the Conservatives will be toast. So they want to give the NDP as much ammunition as possible to stop the leak of NDP votes to the Liberals. I'm not sure it will work but it's Mr. Harper's own fault that the leak is happening in the first place.

It never ceases to amaze me that every single soldier and leader in the military is conservative down to the bone. Do people get recruited by the army based on a how-conservative-you-are test? Given how conservative the Canadian military is, is it really OUR military, or the Conservative's military? If you were given order to catch and kill 10 thousand "communists", would you even stop to think about it? You know, Chile wasn't a police state until a similarly conservative General Pinochet led a coup d'état deposing the democratically-elected President Salvador and established a military government (killing 30 thousand + "socialists" along the way). Pakistan wasn't a police state either until General Musharraf did the same. And then there is Colonel Gaddafi and another military coup. And then General Idi Amin and his military government...Need I continue?

So I guess when those scary Liberal attack ads about soldiers on our streets came out in 2004, the Liberals weren't lying after all

Whatever the case, income trusts were causing the government to lose tax dollars and the problem was going to get worse as more companies decided to convert to income trusts. On top of that, the Conservatives need the money for income-splitting, the UCCB and other beer and popcorn initiatives. Closing the income trust loophole was the right thing to do and should have been done years ago. I fully support Flaherty on this one but the fact that the Conservatives did it in the most damaging idiotic way possible is - well, that's a whole other story. Now the damage is done and there is no way to reverse it, so it's time to put this issue to bed. The two good lessons that can be learned from this are that 1) you shouldn't put all your apples in a tax loophole and 2) never, never trust a politician even if you worship him - the CPC are politicians too.

No, I said that CA and August are conservative.

Hang on now, nothing in margrace's post suggest that she went to a fianancial advisor who reviewed her income and expected future income and advised her that RRSPs were the right vehicle. I expect that she was subject to the same general RRSP advertising the rest of us are, and based upon her own analysis decided to invest in RRSPs. Financial products are advertised all the time. Does that mean they are right for everyone? Obviously not. All sorts of products are advertised all the time. But people don't normally blame the government for every bad purchase they make. Conservatives are very interesting people. They want government out of their face because they can take care of themselves. But the moment they make a bad decision they run around screaming hysterically that it's the government and the bureaucrats' fault that that the government has to bail them out. Geez, grow up!

margrace, let's make something clear. GIS is welfare for seniors. When you cash in RRSPs, the government doesn't take your RRSPs away. The government claws back your welfare at 50 cents for each additional dollar of RRSP income you withdraw. Now, I don't know why you think that receiving welfare on top of your OAS payments is a right - it isn't. Mr. Clement doesn't grow money on a money farm - this money comes from the taxes others pay and it is in very short supply. Therefore, welfare should go only to people who really aren't able to support themselves, not to everyone who figures they have a right to get it. It's unfortunate that you put your money into RRSPs because GIS is currently available but on the bright side it may turn out to have been a good investment because in few years time the GIS may not be around.

Wait a second here. If I go to a dentist or a doctor, how can I judge what is necessary? Do people get financial advice from doctors and dentists? There are some things that are difficult to judge, but deciding on whether to put your money into an RRSP is not one of them. Any person of average intelligence and internet access can learn all the important details of the retirement benefit system and the RRSP tax implications in less than a day - it doesn't take going to medical school and it ain't rocket science. Now if you prefer not to bother with such mundane things and you just trust the salespeople - well, you are going to get screwed. Which is of course you own fault.

Sales people often convince people to buy products that are useless. Do you just buy something because a salesperson tells you it's a good idea? Do salespeople normally point out the shortcomings of their products and tell you the product will not be useful to you, so don't buy it? Let me ask you another question. Why do you imagine that the banks and financial institutions have your interests at heart instead of their own? People always have their own interests at heart first and the interests of their clients second. People who profit from RRSPs will always advise you to put your money into an RRSP. They'll even tell you to take out a loan and put it into RRSPs. That's their job, that's how they make a living. So why do you trust them that that's the best course of action for you to take? They are trying to sell you stuff. They are not independent observers who have nothing to gain. You shouldn't just blindly trust TV advertising and your financial adviser. You have to do your own research, pay attention, and understand what you are doing.

Or claim to be married. Is that the kind of social engineering you accuse the left of? Well, it is really the political angle that's important here. It's a big vote-buying exercise.

Let me assure you that SPSD/M is one of the best static microsimulation models in this country (there are fewer than a dozen of these in Canada) and it runs with the best income data available. The Department of Finance does not have a better model. Whether it was used at the Parliamentary Library or at Finance, or anywhere else, I can assure you that it produced the best static results you can produce. The results present the minimum cost of income-splitting. Behavioural changes can only increase the cost and there is no limit on how much damage income-splitting can cause to the federal treasury.

Mr. Turner was kind enough to post the report mentioned earlier in the other thread on income-splitting. Here it is: http://www.garth.ca/news/garth-turner-inco...ecember2006.pdf Non-elderly couples who will benefit from income-splitting WITH children INCOME.....Number(in thousands).Proportion..Average tax savings <$30K..................96......................31%..............$215 30-60K...............455.......................65%.............$369 60-90K...............733......................87%..............$900 90+K.................972.......................77%............$1,362 Total.................2,257.....................73%.............$963 Total Cost to the federal gov't $2,172 million WITHOUT children INCOME....Number(in thousands)....Proportion..Average tax savings <$30K................173.......................37%.............$194 30-60K...............585.......................71%.............$412 60-90K...............760.......................86%..............$920 90+K..................831......................74%...........$1,342 Total.................2,350.....................71%.............$$889 Total Cost to the federal gov't $2,090 million What should be noted here is that these numbers do NOT account for any behavioural changes due to income-splitting and that they are an estimate for the 2007 year. Now if you look at the numbers, what you'd notice is that the tax savings due to income-splitting will be roughly the same for couples WITH children and couples WITHOUT children. The number of couples in both groups is roughly the same, the overall proportion of couples who will benefit is roughly the same, even in each income group. The average tax saving are also roughly the same and so it the cost to the federal treasury. Overall, the main conclusion here is that the likelihood of benefiting from income-splitting and the amount of the benefit is roughly independent of whether a couple has or does not have children. You'll also notice that only a third of couples with under $30K in income will benefit vs roughly 80% of couples in the $60+K groups. This is of course because most of the couples in the under 30K group already benefit from almost complete income-splitting through the spousal tax credit (which will be wiped off by income-splitting). Note too that single parents won't benefit at all, which means that close to half of all families with children won't benefit from this at all. Now the argument in favour of income-splitting is that it will benefit families with children with lower incomes and a stay-at-home parent. The numbers though show that there is very little to support this argument. In fact, the likelihood of benefiting and the amount of the benefit appear to be almost unaffected by the presence or absence of children and the families with lowest incomes are by far least likely to benefit from income-splitting. This may seem unintuitive at first but here are a couple of explanations why the numbers differ from what many people would expect: 1) The couples with lowest incomes already benefit from income-splitting through the spousal amount, so this new form of income-splitting will replace the old one resulting in no net benefit for most of these couples. 2) The majority of the benefits will go to higher income earners as demonstrated by the numbers. These are typically workers in their prime income-earning years - the late 40s and 50s, many of whose kids have grown up and left home already. In conclusion, only about half of families with children will benefit. Families with the lowest incomes are least likely to benefit. Families without children are more likely to benefit than families with children. Income-splitting is a tax cut that will disproportionately benefit couples with widely differing incomes, independent of the presence of children. It leaves out single-parent families, other unattached individuals, and two-income earner couples earning similar incomes, who won't benefit at all.

And how do you imagine this will happen without burning less coal and wasting less energy? People who claim that cleaning up the air and reducing GHG emissions will not be achieved by the same means are liars. You cannot clean up the air without reducing GHGs and vice-versa.

Who cares, the ndp are irrelevant. The NDP are irrelevant in Conservative/Liberal heaven but in reality they hold the balance of power which gives them some relevance.

Things haven't been looking good for quite a while and what most are actually wondering is why Canada's numbers weren't more anemic earlier. Oil prices going down would probably be beneficial for the Canadian economy because 1) the majority of our industries use oil while the minority produce it, and 2) lower oil prices will likely cause our dollar to depreciate against the US dollar, which is something that is very badly needed. I don't think that we are headed for a recession either but for very low growth for a while. That's unless the US runs into a lot of problems which seems unlikely now that Bush can't do whatever he wants so easily.

No, tax brackets and most benefits are currently indexed with inflation. However, they were not indexed between 1992 and roughly 2000. There was significant bracket creep during that period and taxpayers were hit by a new tax every year but the government was also hit with the huge task of turning the finance of this country around (from near bankruptsy) and they used the bracket creep as another way to help them fix their finances. Now they also eliminated the surtax for high-income earners well before they started indexing the tax brackets but that's a whole other topic.

Income-splitting is similar to the GST in that the government tried to pass it off as something for the little guy when the wealthy benefit the most, but it differs from the GST cut in three major aspects. 1) The argument here is that it is a tax cut for families with children, when in fact families with children are less likely to benefit from it than families without children. 2) The GST cut provided some benefit for roughly 90% of Canadians (maybe even more). Income-splitting will cost the same or more but it will target maybe a quarter of Canadians, namely couples who earn widely differing incomes. 3) The cost of the GST cut can be well estimated and a 1% GST cut is unlikely to change behaviours significantly. Hence, the cost of such a cut is unlikely to surprise and come well above expectations. Income-splitting on the other hand can result in much higher costs than optimistic Flaherty would expect. Income-splitting can result in some very large benefits, hence it has a lot of potential to cause significant changes in behaviour. It is therefore very difficult to put a limit on the cost of income-splitting. My feeling on this is that if you want to give parents more money for childcare, you should do just that - target parents with younger children through the UCCB or CTB. If you want a general tax cut, you should do it across the board. Giving a quarter of Canadians a significant tax cut and claiming that it it has something to do with childcare when having children doesn't make a parent more likely to benefit or to benefit more than couples without children....well, that just harpercritical.

So you don't put any money into a tax protected account for the tax savings and retirement? I know that if I didn't put money into an RRSP, I'd be hit for thousands this year even after trying to find every tax break I could get. jdobbin, this is really for people who have too little income to get a significant tax break by putting money in to an RRSP. These people would be better off not saving at all because if they do their retirement incomes will be similar to the OAS/GIS benefits. This of course is only valid if you assume that the GIS will remain as it is in the future, which is a bad assumption imo. For anyone earning over $35K though, maxing out their RRSP is probably a good idea.

The GIS was meant for retired people who had very little or no income and were not in a position to save from this point on. Really, it was meant as welfare for seniors. The problem with it though is that it's been around for too long and unlike welfare it is only income-tested, not income and wealth-tested. This means that retirees who saved very little for retirement are seeing that their income is roughly the same as retirees who didn't save at all and are now enjoying the GIS. It looks like the RRSP promoters did low-income earners a disservice by telling them to save for retirement. This also means that making this information widely available is giving low-income earners ideas to not save at all for retirement (unless they can save a lot) because generous government benefits will be available to them when they retire. Yet another disservices for low-income earners and future retirees because as more people start taking advantage of the GIS, there will be more pressure to reduce the benefit or cancel it altogether. For those here who plan to retire 10 or more years from now, don't fall into this trap thinking that you'd be better off without retirement savings - the GIS will not be there when you retire.

I was thinking more like 8 or 9 %. That won't be enough to cover interest on the debt and OAS alone.