Stephen Harper went after Paul Martin today about avoidance of Canadian taxes.
A fair jab at someone who had first challenged Mr. Harper's patriotism. And an example of the gap between Liberal rhetoric and behaviour.
Liberals talk about how those who prosper need to be happy when the taxman scrapes away half in order to benefit the "less fortunate" (a category into which an excess number of Liberals seem to put themselves). They suggest that it's the mean Conservatives who don't like paying taxes. Great rhetoric. But when push comes to shove, Mr. Martin does what any other reasonable person would do -- arrange the financial affairs of his company in his and the company's best interests.
I remember someone who was a great socialist. He (or she) thought that the transfer of wealth in Canada was indeed a wonderful thing. He thought the fact that dentists in some Scandinavian country generally can't afford to buy new cars (because their earnings were taxed away) was just great. However, when it was his time to enter a taxpayer-subsidized retirement/nursing home, he made a point of first transferring his primary asset - his home - to his children. He did what any other reasonable person would do, while keeping within the law -- organize his affairs to his or her family's personal benefit.
Seems like socialists like to talk the talk but when their own incomes rise, don't want to walk the walk.
Although Liberals and NDPers may preen and parade about how much Canadians love to pay the taxes that fuel government largesse, I've never seen a crowd of people rushing out to a "pay double the tax" sale at a store. Maybe we should try one and see who shows up.
5 comments:
It looks like Stephen Harper is doing the right thing.
Maybe Paul Martin is doing the wrong thing.
Polls are not to be relied on but there do seem to be some trends which must be worrying to the Liberals.
This BLOG shows the sequence to date.
http://tthfacts.blogspot.com/2005/12/truth-hurts-seat-forecaster-daily.html
I don't know any real socialists or they have not revealed themselves to me. On the other hand, I do know lots of Liberals.
Some seem to be in a time warp. -- My grandfather voted Liberal, so did my father and so will I. We are a Liberal family.
Of course the Liberal party of the grandfather is not the Liberal party of today.
Others are Liberal by conviction. They work hard for the party because they believe that the Liberals are the best answer for Canada. This response was very common in Quebec amongst Anglophones.
No Liberals like paying taxes. They groan loudly at the impositions. They think the rich should pay and they are obviously not rich. (There was great horror in Quebec when being rich was actually defined as having an income over $25K. A lot of Liberals fell over that line.)
Usually, Liberals think taxes are for other people and thay should be excused. Paul Martin is one of them. He has used every device he could to reduce the tax burden on his companies. Odd, isn't it.
Well certainly my impression of Quebec politics is that the money must flow from the ROC into Quebec, and that if it ever started to flow the other way, it would be "game over!". Just like Nfld loved getting "have not" money from Ontario and Alberta, but now that the tap is flowing in Nfld, they are horrified at the idea that the "free money" may be cut off. So, the Liberals can talk in idealistic terms, but there's an awful lot of self-serving going on. Ontario pays -- but at least it "buys-in" to the social Liberal agenda. Alberta pays -- and doesn't even get thanks or gratitude from the rest of the country.
And, of course, PEI shows its gratitude for the largesse of other provinces by taxing out-of-province residences double when they invest in a PEI property. Now that's something I would like to see the Charter judges knock down!
I know something about the double taxation of Aliens (that's what they call "come from aways" in PEI.)
I had a property at the time. I also had a subscription to the Guardian which went to my home in Quebec. I remember the headline which exclaimed that Islanders were going to get all kinds of goodies and there would be no increase in taxes.
I was very resentful of the special tax and wrote to the Liberal Ghiz government to no avail.
I joined a group and donated money to them to take the issue up with the courts. We won all the way up to the Supreme Court. The SC said that it was not a tax so we lost at that level. (I might add that the list of slimy tricks used by the provincial lawyers to stop the case was quite interesting.)
In any event, the way it worked was everyone was taxed but locals got a rebate of 50%. This sort of deal exists in other provinces where elderly people can get rebates on their property taxes.
All kinds of regular Islanders were hit. Folks in the military who had kept a property to return to, folks who had gone away to make some money and who planned to come back all faced the tax.
Even Joe Ghiz got hit, much to his surprise, when he went to Nova Scotia.
Over the years the rebate has been steadily reduced by order in council. I don't know if the double tax still exists. It may have vanished and everyone now pays the full amount.
As I recall, Joe Ghiz neglected to report his out-of-province residency and thus avoided paying the double-tax for a period of time. When caught, he explained that he had forgotten about the requirement passed while Premier.
Once again, we find a situation where a person "believes" in a tax, but believes he should be exempt.
There's a running theme to this post!
If I ever run for office, I'll run as an Independent, and my motto will be "we'll make the other guys pay". This seems to be the unspoken assumption behind a lot of the vote-buying that goes on -- that it's coming from some other guy's pocket.
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