Hundreds of rich pay no tax: Study ?

[ScottSA]

oh yeah... and one more thing.

as far as 'corrupt' politicians are concerned. who puts them there!? they don't get there without MONEY! its a pay to play game and the big money makes the rules.

What does that say about the electorate? What does that say about democracy?

[godzilla]

What does that say about the electorate? What does that say about democracy?

that democracy is constantly being hijacked by the richest! that the electorate need to stop treating politics like a frikin sporting event ("i'm a life long conservative!", "go senators!"), tell anybody who trys to sell political parties or personages ("dion is a leader you can trust!") and start focusing on the details of specific issues that collectively affect ones quality of life and vote for people (not parties) who pledge specific actions.

and while i am completely off topic. ALL POLITICAL PARTIES SHOULD BE BANNED! they are the instrument used to hijack the democratic process.

[mikedavid00]

isn't the rich guy actually using tremendously more of whatever services are provided?

what do you think the wealthy would say if there was no more taxation?! and they would be responsible for the roads to their businesses, and educating their workers, and providing for their health care etc etc?! they much prefer the current system!!

wake up out there!

People like you who are fortunate enough to be able to invest are desperately needed and I feel that you should not be taxed at all on your investments.

I agree that anyone making that money is not on T4'd income. There are rare exceptions like Doctors I guess who might have to pay lots of tax.

I wouldn't say the rich person is using a 'tremendous' amount more. But that's what they worked for and is the social class they have been born in so that's how it goes. Americans have a luxury tax.

You are talking about a US when you talk about guarding borders and immigration.

i'm talking about willingly letting in people to saturate our job maket.

But that's ntohign you have to worrry about. You never have to worry about losing your job to immigrants so naturally you support it. And immigrants aren't your neighbours either so again you don't have to worry about it.

But you are a small, small sect of people in Canada.

[mikedavid00]

and while i am completely off topic. ALL POLITICAL PARTIES SHOULD BE BANNED! they are the instrument used to hijack the democratic process.

I agree.

Everyone else should too if you know what he's talking about. The reason why our immigration and tax system is the way it is is because of what he said above. That's why nothing gets done about the latter. And then our healthcare.

We need elected members and representatives who do not belong to a party to represent us based on their platforms.

Naturally, the US comes closest to this system.

[godzilla]

You are talking about a US when you talk about guarding borders and immigration.

i'm talking about willingly letting in people to saturate our job maket.

i apologize if my words implied that i agreed with current immigration policy... lets keep that to another thread.

my point was that implementation of _any_ policy takes money... tax money.

[msj]

i've never seen such a load of crap that avoids the obvious in such a thread (ok, maybe i have).

READ MY EARLIER POST ON THIS THREAD!

any chat about anybody making $250,000 as T4'd income is boulderdash. how many people in canada do you think really have this income from a T4'd job?! those with this kinda income are making it from shareholders income and have their assests protected behind a corporation.

Once again - read the OP.

It states that 579 people who reported incomes of $250,000+ paid no income tax in 1999.

The story implies that the CRA is using their stats database which you can see for yourself if you go to the CRA website and enter "statistics" under "search."

This means that the CRA are not looking through corporations - they are looking at what is being reported on personal tax returns.

The problem is we do not have enough details to really make any kind of judgment.

The best example of this is if someone sold her shares of a qualified small business which is "tax free" up to the first $500,000 of gain (in 1999).

Sure, she sold her company for $500,000 (low cost shares so that's the capital gain) and she won't pay any income tax but she would definitely pay AMT ($14,500 in federal). So, is Alternative Minimum Tax counted in the study as tax paid or not?

See this as an example:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2028/155666...b650231b6_o.gif

And even then, as the above example shows, she still would have paid $314 worth of surtax which likely would have been picked up in the statistics.

So, the problem is that the AMT calculation is complicated when it comes to earning capital gains and investment income so it is more likely for a person to have salary and/or business income and losses on their personal return since those don't factor into the AMT (as shown in my "Toronto lawyer" example above).

It still comes down to this: the OP is garbage because very few of us know enough about the tax system to understand how and why a person can pay no taxes.

Furthermore, none of us have access to enough details to make anything but educated guesses and I'm the only one on here who can back them up by showing actual tax summaries.

Edited October 13, 2007 by msj

[no queenslave]

Once again - read the OP.

It states that 579 people who reported incomes of $250,000+ paid no income tax in 1999.

The story implies that the CRA is using their stats database which you can see for yourself if you go to the CRA website and enter "statistics" under "search."

This means that the CRA are not looking through corporations - they are looking at what is being reported on personal tax returns.

The problem is we do not have enough details to really make any kind of judgment.

The best example of this is if someone sold her shares of a qualified small business which is "tax free" up to the first $500,000 of gain (in 1999).

Sure, she sold her company for $500,000 (low cost shares so that's the capital gain) and she won't pay any income tax but she would definitely pay AMT ($14,500 in federal). So, is Alternative Minimum Tax counted in the study as tax paid or not?

See this as an example:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2028/155666...b650231b6_o.gif

And even then, as the above example shows, she still would have paid $314 worth of surtax which likely would have been picked up in the statistics.

So, the problem is that the AMT calculation is complicated when it comes to earning capital gains and investment income so it is more likely for a person to have salary and/or business income and losses on their personal return since those don't factor into the AMT (as shown in my "Toronto lawyer" example above).

It still comes down to this: the OP is garbage because very few of us know enough about the tax system to understand how and why a person can pay no taxes.

Furthermore, none of us have access to enough details to make anything but educated guesses and I'm the only one on here who can back them up by showing actual tax summaries.

you can have all the access and it does not matter- the judge is corrupt and will rule against you in tax court, even when the crown lawyer agrees with you. .

[geoffrey]

you can have all the access and it does not matter- the judge is corrupt and will rule against you in tax court, even when the crown lawyer agrees with you. .

The CRA wins very few of the cases it brings to tax court.

[no queenslave]

The CRA wins very few of the cases it brings to tax court.

if that was true they would not be bringing cases to court.

The judge awards for with the government most of the time . get a copy of the Sorensen letters. The GST was brought in because Definbaker knew personal income taxes were not a power the federal government had. If idiots who voted liberal would of understood this we would not have federal personal income taxes now.

Now that the federal government taxes you so much and assumed so much power it is going to be very hard to change the system; but that does not stop me from trying.

All these partys that run on a seperation or independant platform for any province can not change the system; because once elected they swear to uphold the queen and her corrupt system.

Every person and province was given their right to form their own constitution and give the federal government much less powers.The statute of westminster- after passage no british law

aPPLIED, UNLESS REQUESTED.

[old_bold&cold]

The CCRA loses 95% of all cases that go to court. That is a fact and they will not deny it. I have screamed myself silly about this fact before and the basic answer is so what. The very fact that this is the case, one would think it would be changed, but it has been that way since I can remember and I have been paying taxes for near 5 decades. Wait until you get audited once and then you will see the stupity machine running, and you will understand why it is this way.

[no queenslave]

The CCRA loses 95% of all cases that go to court. That is a fact and they will not deny it. I have screamed myself silly about this fact before and the basic answer is so what. The very fact that this is the case, one would think it would be changed, but it has been that way since I can remember and I have been paying taxes for near 5 decades. Wait until you get audited once and then you will see the stupity machine running, and you will understand why it is this way.

You talking income taxes or custom cases ? I can tell you every case i sat in and watched the judge aworded for the queen. Please provide 3 court cases where the government lost a tax case against an individual.

[geoffrey]

Please provide 3 court cases where the government lost a tax case against an individual.

All from this September:

Falkener v. The Queen, 2007 TCC 514

Altamimi v. The Queen, 2007 TCC 553

Douthwright v. The Queen, 2007 TCC 560

Enjoy.

[old_bold&cold]

I am talking income tax cases. When I finally had to give up mine after $80,000.00 in lawyers, I simply filed bankruptcy. The 95% was the same figure quoted by all the lawyers I spoke to and even the CCRA themselves. There answers to this were we are not here to win but to rather make sure we have all the taxes required.

I can tell you they lost against my wife long before court and had to pay her $25,000.00 + interest, but only after 3 years of arguing. I could have won mine, but I only had maybe $10,000 of personal assets left after paying $80,000.00 in lawyers fees. So since I would not allow my wife to put her money into this, I just did the bankrupt thing. They were trying to get Near $500,000.00 from me, from offshore companies etc.. They ended up without a penny, and I was $80,000.00 poorer here in Canada. But that was years ago. I now make sure that they can never again bother me and I am on a set retirement income, that is beyond their reach.

Oh and by the way, in the stats I stated, the fact that the Crown asks for millions or thousands and gets hundreds instead, is a loss, not a win at courts will report. It took 4 years of arguing in my case before they would admit that the offshore companies, were not to be included in there case, but after that and seeing what I had left here in Canada was not a big deal, that Bankruptcy was by far quicker and more ending in this matter. So yes in a way I won, if you can say paying $80,000.00 in legal fees, for government stupidity, winning.

[msj]

It appears to me that Geoffrey has mentioned 3 income tax cases:

Tax Court of Canada

Maybe you should read them OB&C?

As for any claims about how many CRA wins or loses - well, you have provided nothing more than guesses (and likely poor ones at that).

I would say that one would have to take a proper sample of cases and follow them all the way through the system (where applicable for appeals etc) to see how many are won by the CRA and how many are won by the individuals.

Until someone can point to some actual evidence for a 95% rate (rather than someone claiming this to be the case) it would be wise to not believe it.