It's a New Day for Canada

[George+]

Poor Conservatives...boo hoo!

The center position, which Trudeau did not have, had nothing
to do with the Liberal majority.

2/3 of the center left hated Harper and where he took Canada.
That did it.

Not to mention an unfair voting/election system.

If the Center left does not unite, they could easily get
Lisa Raitt, or A worse right winger, next time.
Heaven forbid!

[OREZ]

Here's something that I was thinking about before the election. We all know that Stephen Harper is an extreme introvert, and hated anything going off script so much they he felt like he needed to control everything including how many questions he could get from the media. Now, I think that people have rightly criticized this sort of behavior for being unacceptable, but in many respects his motives for such authoritarian tendencies have been exaggerated.

If he truly were the evil dictator for life that many on the left accused him of being, he would have filled those Senate seats with Conservatives before the election. This would have stopped the Liberals from passing their legislation until the next election. Since he didn't do this, I am of the opinion that his control-freak tendencies stem from his extreme introversion, and not from an evil desire to cling to power at all costs like Mao Zedong or Putin.

Uh... Aren't the majority of the seats in the Senate already held by Conservatives and didn't he appoint many of them?

ETA. Whereas, JT released Liberal Senators so they could sit as independent. Really shows you the radical difference between these two leaders.

[George+]

Nah...Trudeau just did not want to get hooked
into the investigation of Liberal senators.

Dump the Senate.

[Urbane]

^^^ Yep, right next to Green Gables lol

I've been there and it's nice!

[The Green Barbarian]

ETA. Whereas, JT released Liberal Senators so they could sit as independent. Really shows you the radical difference between these two leaders.

While I admired Trudeau doing that, and it may sound great in theory, I don't think in practice its going to work.

[The Green Barbarian]

Nah...Trudeau just did not want to get hooked
into the investigation of Liberal senators.

Dump the Senate.

Just because the NDP has no senators, and never will have any senators, is no reason to just dump it. The Senate plays a vital role. Reform it sure, but just dumping it is an NDP solution to a problem - in that it's no solution at all.

[The Green Barbarian]

Poor Conservatives...boo hoo!

????

OK...

The center position, which Trudeau did not have, had nothing
to do with the Liberal majority.

Or, in non-bizzaro world that the rest of us live in, it had everything to do with it. Urbane summed it up totally. The Liberals found the middle. The warm, soft mushy middle. Where a big chunk of Canadians reside.

2/3 of the center left hated Harper and where he took Canada.
That did it.

Or 39.5% of the total voter spectrum saw the NDP as too far off in la-la land on the far left to trust with their vote. As for hating Harper, that's pretty extreme. Hate the game, not the player.

Not to mention an unfair voting/election system.

Why isn't it fair George? Because the NDP lost a whole bunch of seats? You do know that the NDP share of the vote dropped across the country, right? It was unfair that the NDP got a bunch of seats on Vancouver Island, as their share of the vote was less than last time. Totally unfair.

If the Center left does not unite, they could easily get
Lisa Raitt, or A worse right winger, next time.
Heaven forbid!

Or, the Liberals stay in the warm center, while the NDP knife Mulcair in the back, and head back to the nutty far left where they belong. The Conservatives stay on the right, and the political spectrum once again becomes a see-saw battle between the Liberals and Conservatives, with the NDP far off and a non-factor, as it should be.

[Urbane]

For those, like Merry, who are worried about a brain drain because of the new tax structure that Trudeau is bringing in here's some encouraging words from Don Cayo:

By Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun October 24, 2015

Make the rich pay! Just how far is prime minister-to-be Justin Trudeau planning to go down the road advocated by this old socialist mantra?

Not so far, according to Rhys Kesselman, the SFU economics professor and tax policy guru.

Even with the federal election campaign over and most of the partisan anti-Liberal spin-doctors having retreated from the public stage to lick their wounds, alarmist voices are still decrying what they portray as a brutal tax hit awaiting upper-income earners. But what has been characterized as a four-per-cent income tax increase for Canadians who earn $200,000 a year or more turns out to be a whole lot less than that when you do the math, Kesselman noted when we talked this week about the Liberal tax plan to lower the tax rates on middle incomes and to raise them on high incomes.

First, note that this will not be an increase of four per cent to rich people’s tax rate, it will be a four-per-cent increase on the marginal tax rate that applies only to a portion, in some cases a small portion, of high-earners’ incomes. For everybody, including the top one per cent of Canadian earners, the tax rate will be the same on the first $200,000 of taxable income each year. Not incidentally, Trudeau has promised that this rate will go down.

This promised tax cut will reduce tax bills by up to $675 a year, and higher-income earners will enjoy the maximum savings. So this will cancel out some of the impact of the increase in the increased rate applied to the top bracket. The net result will be that everyone who has a taxable income of less than $217,000 a year will wind up with tax bills that are at least a little bit lower under Trudeau’s proposed changes.

And note that we are talking about people’s taxable income, not gross incomes. Kesselman suggests most rich folks are able to ensure their taxable income is lower, often much lower, than their gross income thanks not only to the personal deductions that all taxpayers enjoy, but also provisions like reduced tax liability on capital gains, dividend tax credits, tax-deductible RRSP contributions, self-employment deductions, tax advantages stemming from being paid in stock options, and more. Not to mention that most rich people can afford high-quality tax advice.

For someone with $250,000 in annual taxable income — that is, what they have left after all those substantial deductions — the additional hit on their tax bill will be $1,325 a year, Kesselman calculates. This is less than a 0.5-per-cent increase in their total federal tax bill payable. And, since provincial income tax rates won’t change, it is significantly lower still as a percentage of their total income tax bill.

When taxable income rises to $500,000 a year, the tax bite will be harder. He calculated it to be approaching $1,000 a month, or 2.25 per cent of the total federal income tax bill.

When their incomes reach well into the six figures and beyond, he said, “people can gripe if they want. But they’re not going to be out-of-pocket enough to cut into their budget for latte-buying or for Armani-buying.”

Nor does he think the proposed new tax rates will be high enough to influence how hard well-to-do Canadians are prepared to work, how early they will choose to retire, or what country they will want to live in.

The evidence from other jurisdictions is that it would take a tax rate much higher than the Liberals are proposing to influence these kinds of behaviours to anything beyond a minuscule degree, he said.

[email protected]

[maple leaf]

And note that we are talking about people’s taxable income, not gross incomes. Kesselman suggests most rich folks are able to ensure their taxable income is lower, often much lower, than their gross income thanks not only to the personal deductions that all taxpayers enjoy, but also provisions like reduced tax liability on capital gains, dividend tax credits, tax-deductible RRSP contributions, self-employment deductions, tax advantages stemming from being paid in stock options, and more. Not to mention that most rich people can afford high-quality tax advice.

Most people know that the rich don't pay what they could ,through the legal loopholes they can take advantage of and lower their taxes.
Trudeau's advertising was all about raising the taxes of the most wealthy ,SO the middle class can pay less..How is he going to pay for his promises without higher deficits and more debt.?

[Atomoa]

Exactly.

Just like all these Vancouver homeowners making 35K a year and living in 4 million dollar homes.

In the Vancouver area of Dunbar, which realtors said is a top neighbourhood for Chinese clients, one in four of what Statscan calls “couple families” – excluding seniors – declared income of less than $35,000 in 2013. That puts them in the lowest tax bracket.

Given that the municipal property taxes on a $2-million to $3-million home are about $10,000, those reported income levels are questionable.

The Liberals won't be touching corporate tax rates, where the real money has piled up. 500+ billion just sitting in a pile thanks to tax cuts by the Conservatives and Liberals.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013 ... eport.html

[Captain Awesome]

Trudeau's advertising was all about [b]raising the taxes of the most wealthy ,SO the middle class can pay less.

Well, let's imagine how many people in Canada make more than $217,000/year? Not a whole lot, but few.
How many people are considered "middle class"? A whole lot more.

So, if increase the taxes on "not a whole lot" individuals and spread that extra money along "a whole lot more" people, do you really think that taxes are going to go down for middle class people in any meaningful way? Fat chance.

The whole argument of "let's make the rich pay so we pay less" is kinda dumb if you put things into perspective.

[GordonH]

Trudeau's advertising was all about [b]raising the taxes of the most wealthy ,SO the middle class can pay less.

Well, let's imagine how many people in Canada make more than $217,000/year? Not a whole lot, but few.
How many people are considered "middle class"? A whole lot more.

So, if increase the taxes on "not a whole lot" individuals and spread that extra money along "a whole lot more" people, do you really think that taxes are going to go down for middle class people in any meaningful way? Fat chance.

The whole argument of "let's make the rich pay so we pay less" is kinda dumb if you put things into perspective.

Hmmm………. okay, flat tax on everyone above "X" yearly income. Save millions on having CRA, just keep the fraud department going.
I know will not work

"X" to be determining

[The Green Barbarian]

Most people know that the rich don't pay what they could ,through the legal loopholes they can take advantage of and lower their taxes.

Actually, most people don't know this, because most people know this is a completely invented urban myth concocted by the NDP and accepted by brain-less automatons who seem to make up the core support of the NDP. You can classify anything as a "loophole" if you want to, but that doesn't make it a "loophole". Just because you can't understand why certain deductions exist, or don't have the brains to take advantage of them, doesn't make it a loophole, it just makes you a jealous and selfish person who wants to wield the government as some sort of revenge tool against people you hate because you haven't been able to find a way to be as successful as they are. And that's just morally wrong. Shame on you.

[The Green Barbarian]

Exactly.

Just like all these Vancouver homeowners making 35K a year and living in 4 million dollar homes.

and yet this example is completely irrelevant as these people aren't Canadian citizens and so aren't subject to Canadian tax. You can be jealous of them all you want, but it's not relevant to this topic whatsoever.

[maple leaf]

[
Actually, most people don't know this, because most people know this is a completely invented urban myth concocted by the NDP and accepted by brain-less automatons who seem to make up the core support of the NDP. You can classify anything as a "loophole" if you want to, but that doesn't make it a "loophole". Just because you can't understand why certain deductions exist, or don't have the brains to take advantage of them, doesn't make it a loophole, it just makes you a jealous and selfish person who wants to wield the government as some sort of revenge tool against people you hate because you haven't been able to find a way to be as successful as they are. And that's just morally wrong. Shame on you.

Actually most people do know and I will take the opinion of this guy,to whom I was commenting on what he is saying over some biased yahoo on castanet ,who's only rebuttal is insults and rudeness and opinion .Who probably is one of the wealthy who relies on all the tax advantages afforded to the wealthy,and will say anything in attempts to silence any opposition and awareness brought up.

And note that we are talking about people’s taxable income, not gross incomes. Kesselman suggests most rich folks are able to ensure their taxable income is lower, often much lower, than their gross income thanks not only to the personal deductions that all taxpayers enjoy, but also provisions like reduced tax liability on capital gains, dividend tax credits, tax-deductible RRSP contributions, self-employment deductions, tax advantages stemming from being paid in stock options, and more. Not to mention that most rich people can afford high-quality tax advice.

J. Rhys Kesselman
Professor


Jonathan Rhys Kesselman joined Simon Fraser University’s School of Public Policy in 2004, where he is a professor and holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Finance. From 1972 to 2003 he was a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, and from 1992 to 2003 he served as director of the UBC Centre for Research on Economic and Social Policy. He was director and principal investigator of the SSHRC/MCRI project on "Equality/Security/Community." He has a B.A. (Hon.) in economics from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T.

Professor Kesselman is a frequent commentator on issues of public finance, taxation, and economic policy. He has written widely on topics in tax policy, income security, employment policy, and social insurance finance, including monographs on Financing Canadian Unemployment Insurance (1983), Rate Structure and Personal Taxation: Flat Rate or Dual Rate? (1990); General Payroll Taxes: Economics, Politics, and Design (1997); a C.D. Howe Institute study, A New Option for Retirement Savings: Tax-Prepaid Savings Plans (2001); studies for the Institute for Research on Public Policy: Flat Taxes, Dual Taxes, Smart Taxes (2000), Tax Design for a Northern Tiger (2004), and Income Splitting and the Joint Taxation of Couples (2008); Expanding Canada Pension Plan Retirement Benefits (2010); Payroll Tax, GST, and Cash Flow Tax: Reforming State Indirect Taxes (2010); and a co-edited volume for UBC Press, Dimensions of Inequality in Canada (2006). His research also appears in numerous articles in scholarly journals and volumes.

Professor Kesselman’s research has been recognized by the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Professorial Fellowship in Economic Policy (1985), the Canadian Tax Foundation’s Douglas J. Sherbaniuk Distinguished Research Award (2002), and the Canadian Economics Association’s Doug Purvis Memorial Prize for Canadian economic policy research (1998 and 2007). He is a Research Fellow with the C.D. Howe Institute and serves on the editorial boards of Canadian Public Policy and the Canadian Tax Journal.

His research interests in recent years include the economics of tax avoidance and evasion, reform of the GST and provincial sales taxes, finance of post-secondary education, the National Child Benefit, flat taxes, personal and business tax reform, First Nations taxation, federal and provincial payroll taxes, BC fiscal and taxation policies, the distributional impacts of taxes, the “brain drain,” mandatory retirement, income splitting, the basic income guarantee, and expansion of Canada Pension Plan retirement benefits.

Links

Abbreviated C.V.
Scholarly Record
Policy Commentaries
List of Selected Publications

Courses Taught

PLCY 808 - Advanced Policy Analysis I (Capstone Course I)
PLCY 809 - Advanced Policy Analysis II (Capstone Course II)
PLCY 824 - Social Policy