Tax poem

I received a chain letter today. I normally don't forward chain letters, but I feel this one appropriate.
The email subject was "Send it Around Canada........."

The claims are false. In 1955, just years after WW2 and Korea tthere was no national debt???? Drivers licenses and marriage licences were free?? (not to mention those user fees are not taxes)

Nope.

The reference to "UI" is your clue.

Another is mom stayed home to raise the kids - yep, blame that on the pols.

We did have a large middle class - thank the unions in large part for that one.

Worker's comp - what a good idea. Cig taxes too.

We certainly had income tax 60 years ago.

Medicare - what a good idea, although the premiums aren't.

Ultimately blame ourselves for the problems of the world. People who think "I've got mine" and vote that way. People who buy the Siren song of consumerism and just want to pay lowest price, who cares where it's make, who makes it and under what environmental conditions it's made. People who think the problem is with people on the bottom getting govt services, instead of those at the top creaming off the wealth, and who think you can build a cohesive society that way, as long as we can lock enough people up for long enough.

He're's an example. A CPC MP is retiring from the Prince George riding. First got elected as a Reform candidate. Amasses 500k in expenses, much of it in air travel. He doesn't actually live in the PG riding, but In Osoyoos, and bills the govt for flying to PG then to Ottawa, then back to Osoyoos. Bills for the old lady to do the same, who apparently is not willing to live in PG. (Who can blame her). Will now retire on a cushy pension.

This is a Reformer. It just shows what bullshit underlays the CPC, dominated by ex-Reformers. All about a lean govt, but I'm getting mine. Bleat on about the scum at the bottom who might need some help, but feed at the trough like nobody's business and never look up to see the piggyness of the 1%. And the bobble heads lap up the Kool-Aid, keep voting for the party that's claims to be frugal with a dollar.

60 years ago we had much higher income taxes on the rich, but somehow the job givers managed to give everybody a job who wanted one, and at wages that allowed mom to stay home (not that they wanted to) and afford a decent life for the kids, with uni for pretty well anybody that wanted it, tho you didn't need it. So yeah, bring back 1955 - the future sure looked a lot more hopeful then.

Federal income tax, both personal and corporate, was created in 1917 by the "Temporary War Income Tax Act". In the budget tabled April 24, 1917. Initially it was "4% on all income of single men over $2,000. For others, the personal exemption was $3,000. For those Canadians with annual incomes of more than $6,000, the tax rate ranged from 2 to 25 per cent." The Bank of Canada website has an inflation calculator. Inflation $2,000 from 1917 to today comes to $31,825.00. Inflation for $3,000 comes to $47,737.50.

June 1, 1967: Manitoba introduced a 5% provincial sales tax. Manitoba had no PST before that. When the national health care system was created, some provinces chose to pay for it with a health insurance premium. Manitoba debated this, but create PST instead. Today it goes to general revenue. The hike from 7% to 8% was said to pay for increasing salaries of the Premier, cabinet ministers, MLAs, senior bureaucrats including judges. An exemption to school tax for seniors. And flood damage.

Manitoba introduced personal income tax 1923. Corporate income tax 1924.

Motor fuel excise tax: Manitoba 14¢/L 1923, Federal 10¢/L 1975.

Manitoba payroll tax is called "The Health and Post Secondary Education Tax Levy". It doesn't go to either health or education, just general revenue. Effective 1982.

Manitoba land transfer tax introduced 1987.

GST became effective January 1, 1991. However, that replaced the FST. We had Federal Sales Tax on manufactured goods since before Confederation. I notice Wikipedia refers to the "13.5% Manufacturers' Sales Tax (MST)". However, when I purchased good or mail ordered stuff from the US, I was charged FST, not MST. And there were over 200 different categories, each with different rules and different rates. It ranged from 9% to 17%. And I paid that in the 1980s, so don't tell me it didn't happen. But the average was about what Wikipedia said, depending which good you bought.

I could go on. The poem does exaggerate a bit, but the point is valid. We pay way too much tax. And politicians are constantly creating more. Chrétien-Martin Liberals had reversed that trend, but current politicians of all parties appear to be determined to increase tax. And yes, I do include Harper. His crew cut corporate taxes, not taxes we pay.

We don't pay way too much tax for the services we want from the govt. We howl about the taxes, but then howl when a govt service that we want isn't available. And yes, of course there's lots of waste in govt - there is in private industry too. And your waste might be my benefit, and vice versa. As a society we're incapable of taking the long view - how much poverty costs us, say, or what allowing infrastructure to decay costs. Preventative health care, fuggedaboudid, even tho it would save us a fortune. Just gimme my latest electronic soother right now. And despite our screaming, we keep electing the same bozos, like the guy I outlined above, because he chants the right mantra about self-sufficiency while snorting away at the trough. We don't wan the truth, he just want sweet nothings sung to us. And yes, the opposition is just singing a different tune, but it's still nothing.

We need to find a way to unify us the way going to war did - preferably without actually doing so.