Pat Coghlan

Your problem is that you have a stay-at-home spouse and a large family and you find it difficult to support them. Under the current tax/benefit system you get around $15K in government transfers + $20K in tax credits for having a non-working spouse and a large family. Which in turn means that you most likely receive more government transfers than the total taxes you pay - in other words, you are $20K ahead of anyone else who doesn't have a non-working spouse and kids and chances are that consequently you pay no taxes. And you get this enormous benefit precisely because you have a non-working spouse and a large family. Then you come around claiming that children have been removed from the tax system and that there is some tax penalty for having a family. You get $20K/yr from the system. How is that a penalty? It's not *my* problem. It's a problem faced by every family in which one spouse earns the bulk or all of the income. BTW, my wife works half-days. Care to break down the $15K in government transfers + $20K in tax credits that you seem to think I receive? Tell me what you *think* I'm receiving, and I'll gladly explain why you've erred.

Tell that to the legions of workers who are being laid off because their jobs have been moved to China. Also, the CEO of Exxon made $650M last year. Exactly what was his contribution to the company that was worth $650M? My point is that someone like the Exxon CEO pays a lower tax rate on his $650M (i.e. capital gains - in Canada it's about 25%) than someone supportint a wife and a family on a middle-class income. Does your system differentiate between the two?

One of the things that the creators of the US constitution realized was that there was a need to prevent the concentration of wealth. This is why they have hefty estate taxes. How does a system of flat taxation address this problem? The problem is not progessive taxation, per se, but that we have too many tax brackets and that they apply only to individuals, not families. It would be better to have a system similar to the following: - different tax brackets for various family classes (singles, couples, families with children etc.) - all income (needed for food, shelter etc.) in first bracket taxed at rate x (low) - all income above first bracket (i.e. "luxury" income, for family class) taxed at rate y, which would be slightly higher than rate x The current set of brackets are MEANINGLESS, now that children have essentially been removed from the tax system, and result in a tax penalty for families in which one spouse earns most or all of the family income.

Why the heck would anyone want to have 3+ children? Also, do you greatly enjoy sitting home with 3+ screaming kids? I bet you don't. They only scream for the first few years, and then only occasionally. Actually, we have 5 children. The oldest turns 18 at the end of March. The youngest (twins) are 6. I was single for about 10 years before settling down. Life in general is much more interesting with a large family, especially at dinner time! Somebody has to look after the kids. Funny, I don't hear you complaining how people should look after their own kids instead of expecting somebody else to do it.

Actually in constant dollars income in two-parent families has gone up since the 60s. I think expectations is the biggest reason for the change. In the 60s houses were 1500sq ft, and people had a single car and a single TV. Today they expect more, and are willing to trade one spouse at home in order to get those things. So when people say they can't "afford" to have one spouse stay home, it is usually because of the other choices they make. Well, by trading the at-home spouse they also trade away any realistic possibility of having 3 or more children. Also, you only get one chance to spend the pre-school years with your kids, so that is traded away as well.

Sorry, but in this country the individual is the basic unit of society. If you don't split your work with your spouse and you don't split a jail sentence with your spouse, you can't split income with your spouse either. My family includes my retired parents and my student sister. How's that? Funny thing though, the government insists that families pool their income for the purpose of determining eligibility for tax-delivered benefit payments (CTB etc.). Why is it okay to enforce pooling of income for benefits, but not for tax liability? If you're going to treat everyone as an individual, then let my wife qualify - on her own - for 50% of all such benefits, especially if her income is zero. Or, do you just want to have your cake and eat it too?

I haven't seen the figure that the greatest amount of stay at home parents are upper middle class. And what minimum wage jobs are you talking about and what circumstances are you talking about? As for your assumption that one of the spouses would stay at home for $4 or $5 thousand just to have more children, it is possible but for how long? I found the following census data: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil05a...di=one%20income Note that the figure for average total income seems to be the highest in one-earner familes with children - higher than pretty much every other category other than non-elderly, two-income familes (with or without children). I think it's safe to conclude that families with a stay-at-home spouse have one significantly above-average income. Perhaps someone else can refine this data. I think the main point here is that things have changed significantly since the 1960s, when pretty much anyone earning a decent income could support children and a spouse in the home. I maintain that inflation is the main reason why this is no longer possible (except for some) and that government monetary policy is to blame.

If they really have a choice, why is it that the greatest number of at-home parents have an upper middle-class (or higher) income? Choice is not why many women go to work at close to minimum wage jobs. Out of curiosity, what would happen if many of those families suddenly had an extra $4K-$5K of after-tax income? Would the 2nd spouse still choose to work?

The government is causing inflation thanks to all the money it has been printing. The US government prints money like crazy. Paul Volker tried to keep this under control in the 80s by raising interest rates, but it's out of control now. Not only do families require two incomes, they are also going deep into debt. Do you really think this is all happening because families want 2 cars? Checked the price of a loaf of bread lately?

Women entered the workforce in droves starting in the 70s, soon after Nixon stopped backing the US$ with gold. The inflation which followed forced families to have both spouses in the workforce. You might find the following website interesting, especially the interview with the author of Financial Armageddon: http://www.netcastdaily.com/fsnewshour.htm

Here is a Senate report which provides some estimates ($4-$5B): http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/...s/prb0636-e.pdf This report assumes that couples could simply split incomes. If done properly (wider - but not double - tax brackets for joint filers) the cost would be somewhere in the $3B-$4B range. Is it right to expect families who, simply because of their uneven income split between the spouses, have to fund an additional $3B worth of tax revenue? What is the right thing to do here???

Is full income splitting or joint taxation better than the reducing individual tax rates? I'm not convinced it is. You're implying they are mutually exclusive. They are not. You can fiddle with tax rates, but this won't address the problem of two families with identical combined incomes having tax liabilities which can differ by as much as $16,000 - yet the fact remains that the government considers both families equally eligible for tax-delivered benefit payments like CTB, GST credits etc. In the US, they recognize that it isn't fair to give couples tax brackets which are twice as wide as those of singles. This is why there is a separate set of tax brackets for joint filiers, which are 175% (but not twice) as wide as those used by single filers. In the US, they made a big fuss several years ago over a $1,000 difference (married vs common-law, as I recall). They would be out in the streets with guns if they were subject to Canada's system.

But are those taxes lower than the U.S. rates for a family? And are those lower tax rates supported by other child friendly measures? http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/article8370,8370.html I think the school system starts at age 2 (free?), but I maintain that you need a parent in the home in order to be able to manage 3+ kids. BTW, in France it is the Muslims that have the highest birthrate (and an at-home parent, usually).

They didn't. Only pension-splitting. They should have implemented full income-splitting. Actually, US-style joint taxation would be better. Pension-splitting actually gives an unfair advantage to couples versus singles.

Taxes on larger families are much lower in France because of how they are calculated, namely [family income]/[# family members]. For example, a family of 5 with an income of $100,000 is taxed as 5 individuals, each with $20,000 of income. This results in most of the family's income being taxed in the lowest tax brackets, similar to the pension-splitting scheme we now have in Canada.

It is families with an at-home parent who are able to have higher number of children. This budget does nothing to encourage this practice, ergo, the birthrate will not change.

The taxable aspect aside, the $100/month wasn't even that. The top-up for children under-7 was also removed from CTB payments. Result: Nominal value (before tax) was $100/month Taxes removed at least 1/4 of this amount Another big chunk was lost to to reduced CTB for under-7 children