Top 20% of income earners fund majority of Ottawa's income tax revenue: report

[CdnFox]

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/top-20-of-income-earners-fund-majority-of-ottawas-income-tax-revenue-report

In her March 2023 federal budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was raising taxes on higher-income Canadians to ensure they “pay their fair share,” but a new study shows the top 20 per cent of income-earning households already pay more in total income taxes than the other 80 per cent do.

“When you’re increasing tax rates, part of the problem is that you can alter the tax base, because people start to engage in different behavior and shift around assets,” Fuss explained, saying this behavior can also include moving to areas with lower tax rates, or engaging in more tax planning with lawyers and accountants to reduce their tax bills.

As an example, the study cites a 2010 initiative in the United Kingdom that added a new top personal income tax bracket that increased tax rates for top-earners from 40 to 50 per cent, which the government expected would result in an additional 2.5 billion British pounds in tax revenue.

Rather than an increase, a report published six years later showed that the move actually yielded less than half that number, prompting the U.K. government to lower its top tax rate to 45 per cent.“Just because you think you’re going to gain additional revenue from raising taxes, doesn’t mean it’s actually going to be the case,” Fuss said.

Edited August 3, 2023 by CdnFox

[CdnFox]

• You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
• You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
• The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
• Whenever somebody receives something without working for it, somebody else has to work for it without receiving.
• When half the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, this is the beginning of the end for any nation.

[Michael Hardner]

"but a new study shows the top 20 per cent of income-earning households already pay more in total income taxes than the other 80 per cent do"

But why 'but'?  Are we saying that the current mix is definitely fair because of some standard here?

Question is what works, and what is the guiding ethic for determining that?

 

[ExFlyer]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

"but a new study shows the top 20 per cent of income-earning households already pay more in total income taxes than the other 80 per cent do"

But why 'but'?  Are we saying that the current mix is definitely fair because of some standard here?

Question is what works, and what is the guiding ethic for determining that?

 

The "but" is to correct the assumption that the "rich" pay not taxes.  It also goes on saying by making them pay an additional 5 to 10% will increase the government coffers the same is proven to be wrong.

Asr you somehow thinking that taxation has some sort of "ethical" standard?

While I disagree with much of  cdnfox positions on things, his post above is full of lines that I have used often and is very realistic. What you want and get form government is what you pay them to give back to you. And, while many on these forums are obsessed with how much CEO's and corporate members make, the fact is that they pay 80% of all income taxes in Canada. So, the rich pay for the rest of us to get what we want.

[SpankyMcFarland]

The top 20% of income earners are mostly people who can’t afford an army of lawyers, accountants and other minions to hide their wealth. When you start looking inside the top 1% by assets rather than income, the seriously rich, you will find elaborate ‘tax vehicles’, meetings with politicians and even boutique changes in the law to reduce their tax burden. 

I would like to see stronger enforcement of our existing laws rather than any further attempt to increase the tax on high-income earners who are sitting ducks for this kind of thing. The tax law should be followed no matter the cost. As it is, the government has to hide shameful deals with tax outlaws to save its blushes:

 

Quote

After amassing a fortune selling scrap metal in South Africa, Peter Cooper immigrated to Canada in the mid-1990s with his sons Marshall and Richard and their families.

They settled in Victoria, purchased luxurious homes and became permanent residents — qualifying for Canadian health care and other social services.

But that also meant they would eventually have to start paying tax on their investment income from $25 million in offshore accounts. 

Instead, in December 2001, Peter and his sons signed up for a massive offshore tax dodge designed and run by the Canadian accounting firm KPMG and paid virtually no income tax for more than a decade, according to documents filed in the Federal Court of Canada and the Tax Court of Canada.

 

Quote

The Coopers are "just the tip of the iceberg," said Dennis Howlett, the former head of Canadians for Tax Fairness, a group that advocates against offshore tax secrecy.

The House of Commons finance committee rebooted a long-dormant probe into Isle of Man shell companies last month after CBC/Radio-Canada reported on suspicious money transfers unrelated to the Coopers.

During hearings into the KPMG Isle of Man companies back in 2016, the Liberal chair of the finance committee abruptly blocked testimony — before MPs were able to know how much money the government might have lost in revenue or the names of all the KPMG clients behind those shell companies.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kpmg-isle-of-man-taxes-house-commons-finance-committee-1.6047111

Things don’t seem to have changed very much in the interim. Here’s a report from two years ago.

Quote

Five years ago, tax law expert André Lareau was blocked from giving testimony before the House of Commons finance committee by a last-minute gag order preventing witnesses from talking about a prominent accounting firm's tax avoidance scheme.

Now, he has a message for the members of Parliament who are today rebooting their probe into offshore companies registered in the Isle of Man: if they're serious this time, they should subpoena the Canadian accountants who helped to set up the offshore tax dodge — and demand that they give up the names of the wealthy Canadians whose identities they've been protecting.

"If the committee is willing to open that, well, maybe, just maybe, that means that they are pretty serious about it," Lareau, an associate professor at Laval University, told CBC News.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kpmg-isle-man-tax-shelter-shell-companies-1.6014745

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by SpankyMcFarland

[CdnFox]

The thing is, people don't spend a tonne of money and effort to avoid taxes - UNTIL  the cost of NOT doing so gets too high.  IF taxes go up to the point where it's worth it to hire the best people, set up elaborate tax-avoidance mechanisms, or possibly even move out of the area to a lower tax jurisdiction  then people will do that.

New york found that out a few years back. Taxes were raised and the money fled.  Then tax revenues actually went down.

[Michael Hardner]

2 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

1. Are you somehow thinking that taxation has some sort of "ethical" standard?

2.  the fact is that they pay 80% of all income taxes in Canada. So, the rich pay for the rest of us to get what we want.

1. Both the minister and the NP seem to buy into it, I'm just relaying what I take from this statement:

"Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was raising taxes on higher-income Canadians to ensure they “pay their fair share,” but a new study shows the top 20 per cent of income-earning households already pay more in total income taxes than the other 80 per cent do."

2. CEOs aren't in the top 20%, they're in the top 1%.  My take on this is that as life gets better for the country on the whole, the government should watch the game and nudge it so that the rising tide indeed lifts all boats.  

[ExFlyer]

1 minute ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Both the minister and the NP seem to buy into it, I'm just relaying what I take from this statement:

"Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was raising taxes on higher-income Canadians to ensure they “pay their fair share,” but a new study shows the top 20 per cent of income-earning households already pay more in total income taxes than the other 80 per cent do."

2. CEOs aren't in the top 20%, they're in the top 1%.  My take on this is that as life gets better for the country on the whole, the government should watch the game and nudge it so that the rising tide indeed lifts all boats.  

I am not sure what you are trying to decipher from the statement. It seems very clear to me.

Michael, I am pretty sure the top 20% includes the top 1%? LOL

[Michael Hardner]

8 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

1. I am not sure what you are trying to decipher from the statement. It seems very clear to me.

2. Michael, I am pretty sure the top 20% includes the top 1%? LOL

1. The question being debated is fairness, which is a moral \ ethical thing right?

2. Ok well then the top 100% pays 100% also.  You can get more information if you drill down...

[eyeball]

12 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

the government should watch the game and nudge it so that the rising tide indeed lifts all boats.  

But that means accountability and transparency.

It'll be far far easier to just tax the rich.

[ExFlyer]

17 minutes ago, eyeball said:

But that means accountability and transparency.

It'll be far far easier to just tax the rich.

Taxing the rich is what everyone is whining about.

To find out the top 20% already pay 80% of all the federal and provincial income taxes already has to open some eyes.

[eyeball]

39 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

Taxing the rich is what everyone is whining about.

To find out the top 20% already pay 80% of all the federal and provincial income taxes already has to open some eyes.

Open some eyes...if only it was so easy.

I don't think we'd have to increase taxes on the rich at all if we could simply monitor the interface between the rich and the politicians to ensure a level playing field is being maintained.

 

[CdnFox]

8 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Open some eyes...if only it was so easy.

I don't think we'd have to increase taxes on the rich at all if we could simply monitor the interface between the rich and the politicians to ensure a level playing field is being maintained.

 

YOU SUPPORT THE LIBERALS EVEN THO THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT ILLEGALLY INTERFERING WITH THE RICH!

Justin admitted it, the commissioner found him guilty, the cops said a crime was committed (but they aren't sure if the PM can give himself permission for that).  And you're still here defending him on a regular basis.  You're not calling for the libs to be kicked out, far from it.

So there is NO POINT to additional transparancy - you won't do the right thing when our CURRENT transparency shows CLEARLY there's been a violation

And that's ignoring the SNC scandal and WE as well, EITHER of which should have been enough on their own.

[eyeball]

3 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

YOU SUPPORT THE LIBERALS

? 

[eyeball]

12 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

And that's ignoring the SNC scandal and WE as well, EITHER of which should have been enough on their own.

Either of which should have been stopped cold in their tracks by Harper's Accountability Act.

[ExFlyer]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

YOU SUPPORT THE LIBERALS EVEN THO THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT ILLEGALLY INTERFERING WITH THE RICH!

Justin admitted it, the commissioner found him guilty, the cops said a crime was committed (but they aren't sure if the PM can give himself permission for that).  And you're still here defending him on a regular basis.  You're not calling for the libs to be kicked out, far from it.

So there is NO POINT to additional transparancy - you won't do the right thing when our CURRENT transparency shows CLEARLY there's been a violation

And that's ignoring the SNC scandal and WE as well, EITHER of which should have been enough on their own.

Not sure what anything you say has anything to do with the topic statement that "the top 20% of Canadians pay more than the remaining 80% of Canadians in income taxes, federal and provincial."

Not sure what you mean by "THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT ILLEGALLY INTERFERING WITH THE RICH!"

By the way, if you are implying the rich hide money and do not pay all their taxes, well, so can you. You just need the wherewithal to do it. Also, if the rich hid as much as they could and still pay 80% of all taxes collected, well, that is even more interesting.

[CdnFox]

24 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

Not sure what anything you say has anything to do with the topic statement that "the top 20% of Canadians pay more than the remaining 80% of Canadians in income taxes, federal and provincial."

Pretty simple.  Eyeball said we don't have to tax the rich as long as the public is aware of any illegal interference with the gov't from the rich.  That's his position. This would prevent more tax fraud etc.

However - With the level of transparancy we already have we KNOW that trudeau illegally took a bribe from the Aga Khan just 6 months into his first term and recieved hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits in the form of a free all expense paid trip to the aga khan's private island for xmas.

Yet eyeball supports Justin.  So....  what the hell good would MOAR transparancy do if the public isn't addressing what we already know under the current system?

28 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

Not sure what you mean by "THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT ILLEGALLY INTERFERING WITH THE RICH!"

Boy  you sure aren't sure about a lot of things.  If you look up the aga khan scandal i'm sure you'll get most of it.

28 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

By the way, if you are implying the rich hide money and do not pay all their taxes, well, so can you.

I am not actually.  I'm implying that having even better systems to catch business people interfering with our gov't won't do much good if voters aren't willing to punish the bad behavior we already know about.  So 'moar' of that isn't going to help fight tax issues with the wealthy as suggested.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

?

All caps is the BEST.

Also 'interfering with the rich' now means accepting an invitation to their private island.  

[ExFlyer]

7 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Pretty simple.  Eyeball said we don't have to tax the rich as long as the public is aware of any illegal interference with the gov't from the rich.  That's his position. This would prevent more tax fraud etc.

However - With the level of transparancy we already have we KNOW that trudeau illegally took a bribe from the Aga Khan just 6 months into his first term and recieved hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits in the form of a free all expense paid trip to the aga khan's private island for xmas.

Yet eyeball supports Justin.  So....  what the hell good would MOAR transparancy do if the public isn't addressing what we already know under the current system?

Boy  you sure aren't sure about a lot of things.  If you look up the aga khan scandal i'm sure you'll get most of it.

I am not actually.  I'm implying that having even better systems to catch business people interfering with our gov't won't do much good if voters aren't willing to punish the bad behavior we already know about.  So 'moar' of that isn't going to help fight tax issues with the wealthy as suggested.

The topic is about "Top 20% of income earners fund majority of Ottawa's income tax revenue: report". Your meandering into Aga Kahn sideshow is off topic and not part of this. It is about your distaste of Trudeau alone. Yes, he has enveloped himself in scandal but, this topic is not about that.

This topic is about the rich paying most of the income taxes and not about systems to catch them...to what end? They already pay taxes.

What I am sure of is that you are way off your posted topic of income taxes.

If you wish to discuss scandals or business people interfering with government, start a new thread,.

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by ExFlyer

[Moonbox]

2 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Taxing the rich is what everyone is whining about.

To find out the top 20% already pay 80% of all the federal and provincial income taxes already has to open some eyes.

Earnings growth in Canada has also been dominated by the top 20%, with their share of overall income increasing over the last 35 years to every other quintile's detriment. 

Regardless, the focus on the top 20% is a distraction.  The bottom end of that is nothing impressive, but still oppressively taxed.  The upper echelons (the top 5%) account for a wildly disproportionate share of incomes whilst ultimately paying lower effective rates than the poor schmucks "only" earning ~$200,000/year after the tricks they can afford are accounted for.  

If you're merely going to raise taxes on the top 20%, you're just going to p*ss people off whilst not accomplishing much.  The better approach would be to close tax loopholes and then properly fund CRA (the only government agency that actually brings income in) and ensure that the highest earners are paying reasonables rate in the first place. 

None of this matters, however, if we maintain a government that just blows the roof off of spending and is more and more quickly heading us towards a debt spiral.  

[ExFlyer]

2 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

Earnings growth in Canada has also been dominated by the top 20%, with their share of overall income increasing over the last 35 years to every other quintile's detriment. 

Regardless, the focus on the top 20% is a distraction.  The bottom end of that is nothing impressive, but still oppressively taxed.  The upper echelons (the top 5%) account for a wildly disproportionate share of incomes whilst ultimately paying lower effective rates than the poor schmucks "only" earning ~$200,000/year after the tricks they can afford are accounted for.  

If you're merely going to raise taxes on the top 20%, you're just going to p*ss people off whilst not accomplishing much.  The better approach would be to close tax loopholes and then properly fund CRA (the only government agency that actually brings income in) and ensure that the highest earners are paying reasonables rate in the first place. 

None of this matters, however, if we maintain a government that just blows the roof off of spending and is more and more quickly heading us towards a debt spiral.  

Red herring.
What others make has long been an issue of envy. Most senior managers have been recruited and lured to the positions with pay and benefits. It is what it is. To get the high level people you want, you need to pay for them.

The working class can and do move up the ladders, if they wish but, there is a price to pay to live on the higher floors, be it personal,professional or family.

The"poor" (everyday folks like you and me) can take advantage of the tax loopholes that the rich do as well. The choice is yours to make. Sure, close them if you think that will help....help what??

[eyeball]

28 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Yet eyeball supports Justin.

You just say this because you prefer being a dink about anything. And this is your excuse for eschewing greater transparency? ?

Like I said right wingers have been breathing a sigh of relief knowing Canada's Accountability Act is a joke that even a dink with a banana in his pocket can steer a scandal thru with impunity.

[eyeball]

We probably wouldn't need to increase taxes on the rich if the economic playing field was level and true.

In fact we might even have to lower them once the income/wealth gap started closing.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:

The topic is about "Top 20% of income earners fund majority of Ottawa's income tax revenue: report". Your meandering into Aga Kahn sideshow is off topic and not part of this.

Did you forget to take your meds again today?  Let me walk you through it again.

"We don't have to raise taxes on the rich if we have more information to hold the gov't to account if the rich influence them"

Followed by

"We don't hold them accountable with the the information we have now, how would more help?"

That is 100 percent on topic,  "we don't need to tax the rich if.... "that's not accurate because....

Not to mention its STUPID to pretend EVERY Thread doesn't wander off topic a bit. Every single one,

FFS - you seemed like at least a few of your brain cells were working for a SHORT while recently - could you go back to NOT being a complete !diot pls? You're not going to o back to hissy fits and moronic posts that go on forever are you?

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

Yet eyeball supports Justin.  So....  what the hell good would MOAR transparancy do if the public isn't addressing what we already know under the current system?

You do realize that you support corrupt lying politicians right?

You wouldn't lift a finger to make Canada's governance more transparent because your desire to act like a dink towards lefties is more important to you.

This is what makes you as stupid as a bag of dogshit and a bigger dilettant than Trudeau.