Tax Cuts are Bad

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…at least according to the Liberals!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but my memory seems to recall that in the last election the Liberals accused the Conservatives of planning the death of social programs because the Conservatives promoted tax reductions.

Correct me if I’m wrong … but haven’t the Liberals just offered $30 BILLION in tax cuts? I guess the social programs are safer now than they were a few years ago …so now the Liberals can campaign on the same platform!

Speaking of “tax cuts” …whatever happened to the George Radwanski debacle? Remember him? A half million dollars in tax forgiveness because he was a buddy of Coach Jean Chretien! Have you heard anymore about it? Did he pay? What kind of salary did the feds pay him that he would owe so much? What kind of pay plan was he on that deductions weren’t automatic to cover the tax load? Seems to me I’ve read of people who have had their whole financial lives frozen over less than a thousand bucks in tax discrepancy! Guess it all depends on who you know!

I was talking to an acquaintance recently and the subject of taxation & collection came up. Seems my acquaintance was being garnisheed and his employer was taking 30% off his gross income to satisfy the garnishee order. To me that seemed abusive and I said so. My acquaintance then brought out his papers and showed then to me.

The first thing I noticed was that there was NO accounting for the sum demanded …just a figure. Most importantly, though, all I saw was a ‘CRA document’ that was rubber stamped (it was obvious) with a supervisory signature. There was no proof of claim, nor any court order …just a rubber-stamped piece of paper issued by a tax collector. (I wonder what ever happened to “due process”?) Furthermore I was taken aback and quite offended to notice that a substantial part of the document involved THREATENING the payroll officer/clerk with personal penalties if he or she did not comply with the "order”. By the way, the amount was just over three thousand dollars (not half a million!).

Speaking of ‘tax collection methods … I have another anecdote to share with you regarding who the feds hire to collect their demands of us. Picture this … two employees of Revenue Canada showed up one day at a friend’s office. One of them was quiet (the supervisor) and the other was a loud-mouthed thug who threatened my friend with a number of dire consequences and throughout managed to use the “F” word in all its glorious variables.

My friend was offended and simply asked them to leave … they did …without even bothering to close the office door behind them. Bad mistake. You see, this particular friend is someone who has risked his life (on behalf of the feds, by the way) to ensure you and I are sleeping a little safer …and he was offended deeply by the unprofessional and loutish behaviour of these two “civil servants”. So, he wrote a formal complaint to the regional head of Revenue Canada, explaining the behaviour and details.

This resulted in a meeting wherein he said to the regional head that the behaviour and deportment of the one individual in particular was on the level one would expect from a mouse-house collection agency as a means of applying perspective. Then came an amazing admission from the Rev Can boss …apparently Revenue Canada had gone on a hiring spree for collectors and had farmed all the high-interest finance houses (Avco, Household etc) and had hired all their knee-buster collectors … to represent the federal ‘government’. How nice!

OK …one more poignant anecdote about this abuse. Another acquaintance fell behind on GST remittances by a couple thousand dollars … paying wages first, government second. The business folded due to a downturn in the economy and then the ‘collectors’ showed up with one of those rubber-stamped garnishee orders to present to her new employer. Three years later she was still living in relative poverty ...surviving on what was left over of her salary after usual deductions taken off after 30% of her gross had been skimmed to satisfy the rubber-stamped garnishee order!

Finally, on the insistence of friends & family, she expended more of her precious retained dollars to hire a tax accountant …this being after she did some math and concluded that she would never get past his with the accumulation of penalties and interest being assessed along the way! Fortunately she hired a good accountant. It took a few months but the accountant go results …payments were halted to start with and then finally an admission from the feds that she’d paid too much … $5,000 & change too much!

Had she not hired the accountant (a good one) she would likely still be paying today, three years later. Oh, and as a post script to this anecdote, there are two points …One: She learned from the accountant that the CRA pays commissions to collectors …in other words they get a percentage of money collected so it serves their selfish purposes to have you pay as long and as much as possible. (Talk about privatization!) Two: If you or I were to try to raise or collect money in the same fashion as the feds, we’d be facing criminal charges for fraud and extortion!

OK …so back to Radwanski …apparently the half million dollars he ‘owed’ has just gone away because he has the right friends. Just like so many Quebec-based ad agencies and individuals profited because they had the right friends. Just like a certain golf courses in Shawinigan got special treatment … all because they had the right friends.

Who are those friends? The Liberal Party of Canada ..that’s who. And friends like mine and friends like yours have been intimidated and defrauded out of the money to cover George’s shortfall …not to mention that there was enough left over to slide some financial ‘grease’ to political allies as well. The Naturally Fraudulent Party of Canada seems to have a great little thing going for itself!

So now the Liberals are on the hot seat …but they are confident that if they can stall long enough you and I will forget …especially when they hold out $30 Billion of OUR dollars to entice us to put their arrogant and corrupt party back into power.

If you think I share these stories with you just to we can whine about outcomes .. you’re wrong. I share them to encourage you to think about the causes. Nothing is going to change until Canadians grow a collective backbone and take those elected employees by the scruff of the neck to the wood shed.

WE (you and me) own this country …not politicians and senior civil servants who treat themselves as royalty at our expense. Until that gets straightened out, look forward to bending over time and time again.

Til Next Time
The Serf