Income Taxes

[CLOUD 500]

Like sometimes I wonder if you're genuinely serious or trolling the fuck out of everyone?! It's a legitimate debate to wonder how much taxes one should pay, but to be against all taxes as theft? Do you think the roads you drive on, or municipal services pay for themselves?

I recently read a story from 2010 about a guy whose house burned down because firefighters refused to put out the fire. The homeowner had forgotten to pay a $75 fee that is required for fire department services.

No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn

Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.

www.google.com

The libertarian argument, as put forth by people like Glenn Beck, is that if the firefighters had put out the fire for the non-paying homeowner, then the non-paying homeowner would be mooching off paying homeowners.

Ok so if you make everyone pay, no one would be mooching off anyone, right? Do you know what we call it when we make everyone pay so they have equal access to public services? They're called taxes.

I start a new thread here. I am being serious. Before income taxes there were roads, schools, and firefighters also. Quebec has among the highest taxes in North America yet our roads are riddled with potholes and the healthcare system is in shambles. Do you even know the history of the income tax? The act was first made to fund WW1, it was supposed to be temporary but look, a 100 years later it is still here and taxes have increased 5 fold. We pay almost 50% of our income in taxes, taxes on taxes. The biggest scam in human history. Anything that is not voluntary and taken by force is theft. Do you know how a robber works? He threatens to do something bad to you unless you give him your money. Do you know how the mafia works? They extort businesses of some of their profits or will do something bad. The government wants their taxes or they will send you to jail.

Our politicians tell us we are free, even though most governments take over 50% of what we earn.
They claim we get services that we need for our hard-earned money, even though we could buy the same services at half the price from the private sector.
Today, we ridicule the slave-owners' claim that they "gave back" to their slaves by housing, clothing, feeding them, and bestowing upon them the "benefits" of civilization instead of leaving them in their native state. We see this as a self-serving justification for exploitation.

In the future, we will view being forcibly taxed to pay for things we do not want, such as bombs for the Middle East, subsidies for tobacco, other people's abortions, regulations that put small businesses out of business, prisons for people trying to feel good, keeping life-saving medications out of the hands of dying people, etc., as taking away our freedom.

When even a small portion of our lives is spent enslaved, that part tends to dominate the rest of our time.
If we do not put our servitude first as we structure the remainder of our lives, our masters will make sure we regret it.
How much freedom do we need to survive and how much do we need to thrive?

 

[CLOUD 500]

The only taxes I would agree with is the Fair Tax Act. We do not need more to fund basic public services.

FairTax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ykman]

In Canada there was a form of income tax way before the 20 th century.It was a tax on gross income not on the net profits.

Under the french seigneurial system the seigneur had the monopoly on owning and operating a mill.The farmer (censitaire)had to surrender part of was being milled to the mill owner. Moreover the farmer censitaire was obliged to do some work on for free (corvée) for the public good such as repairing roads.

Cloud 500 forgets the definition of theft which in Canada is defined roughly as converting to one use property of someone else without his consent or without colour of right. If taxes are levied by virtue of legislation there is a clear colour of right.

If conversely one accepts Cloud 500s wider definition of theft which includes legalised spoliation by the stare, it would still apply to The Fair Tax system but it would be fair legalised theft .

In Canada,THERE IS NO DEBTORS PRISON. One does not go to jail merely for unpaid taxes. His property will be seized... he may go Bankrupt.To be sent to jail one would need to be convicted of a criminal offence such as tax evasion.

Does the Fair tax act have criminal sanctions such as Jail time for evading the Fairt Tax . Does the Fair tax act guarantee the elimination of tax evasion. Sales tax and GST are not income taxes. Some people are still avoiding and evading them and risk going to Jail if convicted o f evasion.

May Cloud 500 enlighten us ,

 

[Fradi]

I think if you need enlightenment that you are being way over taxed in Quebec then you have serious problems.
I don’t trust politicians and believe that there is a lot of corruption involved on many levels within our governments on how our tax dollars are being squandered.
Do I believe in taxes? doesn’t really matter as my beliefs or thoughts will not change both governments reaching into my pockets with both hands repeatedly.

 

[ykman]

I think if you need enlightenment that you are being way over taxed in Quebec then you have serious problems.
I don’t trust politicians and believe that there is a lot of corruption involved on many levels within our governments on how our tax dollars are being squandered.
Do I believe in taxes? doesn’t really matter as my beliefs or thoughts will not change both governments reaching into my pockets with both hands repeatedly.

You have not read my post carefully or I maybe was not clear enough in which case I apologize.

My post was NOT a comment on or expressing an opinion on whether the Quebec government is or has been spending its budgets wisely. You are dragging me in area of discussion where I have not ventured.

I was seeking enlightenment from Cloud 500 on the question(s) raised in my second last paragraph about the Fair Tax Act system resolving the problem of unwise spending from the government , problems with hhe health sytem corruption potholes.etc. Cloud 500 says currently the Income tax act does not do that but he seems to see an acceptable solution in the Fair Tax Act scheme.

Untrustworthy people whether or not involved in politics will be found pretty well everywhere

In places such as the Gulf Oil states, the Caiman Islands and other so called tax heavens where there is no Income Tax but essentially indirect taxes by way of custom duties ,money squandering by the state, political corruption, favoritism and cronyism are just as possible as in countries with a robust Income tax regime.

Scandinavian countries whose population are heavily taxed more than we are in Quebec, seem to be high in the social development index and low on corruption ranking.

Can one still say that Scandinavians are overtaxed if all the money is well spent?

 

[Fradi]

Can one still say that Scandinavians are overtaxed if all the money is well spent?

Not all is as rosy as you think in Scandinavian countries.
The high taxes benefit mostly families with children and is very disproportionate with high earning single people and as a result there is an exodus of young talent from these countries.

btw my post was not ment as a reply to yours but one on the taxation where most of us live, I just happened to use the same word “enlightenment“ that you used in yours.
What most people don’t realize is that we in Quebec are way overtaxed compared to most of North America.
Not only do we pay close to 40% of taxes directly from our pay cheque but then what about all the others.
15.6% GST, PST on just about everything you buy, if you happen to be a property owner then you are taxed on your property, school tax, water tax,
drivers license permit, registration for your car, if you own a pet yes registration for your pet, if you want to build anything, then a building permit.
If you want to erect a tempo in the winter of course you need another permit for that. I m sure I have forgotten or left out a few.
Sometimes I think all these politicians ever do is sit in a room and try to think of what kind of new hidden tax can I think up which the people won’t notice.

 

[ykman]

btw my post was not ment as a reply to yours but one on the taxation where most of us live, I just happened to use the same word “enlightenment“ that you used in yours.

Fradi first post started suggesting some one seeking enlightenment about being overtaxed in Quebec could have a problem.
in the following terms :'' I think if you need enlightenment that you are being way over taxed in Quebec then you have serious problems''.
He used the pronoun ''you'' in relation to such person. Somehow foolish me, I took that as being addressed to me . Now he says that such post was NOT meant as a reply to mine...he just latched on to the word entitlement.If that is the case was not the first sentence of his post superfluous?

I actually know two Scandinavians who when young emigrated to Canada (before universal medicare) They moved back to their home country shortly after their trisomic daughter was born. As to the so called hidden taxes mentionned extensively in Fradi's second post ( including a Tempo fee which I never had to pay) they are not Income Taxes.

The question of whether the current Quebec government is spending wisely public money is something that Cloud 500 has raised in the Quebec (Legault) government thread .Why he has not posted his grievances on that thread is not clear. He has not posted there for months.


. Somehow he has started one attacking INCOME TAXES and tried to educate us on the history of the Income Tax Act in Canada and proposing a Fair Tax Act regime. I tried to stick to the topics raised in his new thread.

 

[minutemenX]

As they say, taxes and death are unavoidable for mortals. Though the super-rich can avoid or minimize taxes, and, in the future, may postpone the death itself. For us, mortals, gaming the system is difficult but still possible. I know one guy who is the business owner and regularly hobbies in Montreal claiming business expenses not only on airfare, hotels, and restaurants, which is straightforward, but also often for SP’s fee (hint: English/French translation service, etc.).

 

[Fradi]

As to the so called hidden taxes mentionned extensively in Fradi's second post ( including a Tempo fee which I never had to pay) they are not Income Taxes.

A donkey by another name is still an ass.
They all still come out of the same pocket

 

[sene5hos]

When it comes to taxes, ask trump, he's an expert to fuck the government.

 

[EagerBeaver]

This thread reminds of an experience I had in Montreal probably almost 20 years ago. It was probably 2004, I am guessing. I was staying at the Holiday Inn in Chinatown I. At that time I already had about 10 trips to Montreal under my belt and had always stayed at hotels. Upon my checkout from the Holiday Inn I asked for a bill. The bill itemized local and federal taxes and then some other tax I had never seen before on any hotel bill. I can't remember exactly what they called it at that time, but I had never seen it before on any hotel bill, and it was a prepaid Priceline booking in which taxes and fees are supposed to have been prepaid. I want to say the tax was something like $10 per each night of my stay on top of the GST and FST or whatever the usual local and federal taxes are called.

So I asked the hotel front desk clerk what the tax was for. He couldn't give me an adequate explanation in English, so I asked to speak to the manager. The hotel manager said to me that it was a "hotel tax." I said to him, "I have stayed in 10 other downtown hotels and never have seen such a tax before." He then said to me, "the City of Montreal makes all hotels collect the tax. I can't speak to whether the other hotels you stayed at are obeying the law." I then asked him why Priceline hadn't collected the tax and he retorted, "Priceline is an American company and they aren't always schooled in the nuances of local taxation."

I had the feeling I was talking to a smart ass/wiseass who knew the fraud was on, baby, and was prepared with canned answers. However, at this point I was really tired, I needed to get back to the USA where I was an expected guest that someone was waiting on, and the $40 or whatever the collective tax for my stay was, wasn't going to crush me. So I didn't further argue or dispute it. To this day however, I think I was shaken down, Mexico-style, in Montreal. I never saw that tax on a hotel bill before or since. It was a ruse in my mind to supplement hotel income.

 

[ykman]

A donkey by another name is still an ass.
They all still come out of the same pocket

That is my point. The state takes the money through Incomes taxes ,customs duty, sales taxes GST, tempo fees, property taxes hospitality tax, inheritance taxes etc. Once it has the money, the way it got in the Treasury has no incidence on how wisely or fairly it will be spent.

On this Fradi and I agree I think. I do not know if Cloud 500 does.

 

[Fradi]

When it comes to taxes, ask trump, he's an expert to fuck the government.

That he is for sure.
When it comes to fucking the people we have our own experts JT and Legault

 

[ykman]

This thread reminds of an experience I had in Montreal probably almost 20 years ago. It was probably 2004, I am guessing. I was staying at the Holiday Inn in Chinatown I. At that time I already had about 10 trips to Montreal under my belt and had always stayed at hotels. Upon my checkout from the Holiday Inn I asked for a bill. The bill itemized local and federal taxes and then some other tax I had never seen before on any hotel bill. I can't remember exactly what they called it at that time, but I had never seen it before on any hotel bill, and it was a prepaid Priceline booking in which taxes and fees are supposed to have been prepaid. I want to say the tax was something like $10 per each night of my stay on top of the GST and FST or whatever the usual local and federal taxes are called.

So I asked the hotel front desk clerk what the tax was for. He couldn't give me an adequate explanation in English, so I asked to speak to the manager. The hotel manager said to me that it was a "hotel tax." I said to him, "I have stayed in 10 other downtown hotels and never have seen such a tax before." He then said to me, "the City of Montreal makes all hotels collect the tax. I can't speak to whether the other hotels you stayed at are obeying the law." I then asked him why Priceline hadn't collected the tax and he retorted, "Priceline is an American company and they aren't always schooled in the nuances of local taxation."

I had the feeling I was talking to a smart ass/wiseass who knew the fraud was on, baby, and was prepared with canned answers. However, at this point I was really tired, I needed to get back to the USA where I was an expected guest that someone was waiting on, and the $40 or whatever the collective tax for my stay was, wasn't going to crush me. So I didn't further argue or dispute it. To this day however, I think I was shaken down, Mexico-style, in Montreal. I never saw that tax on a hotel bill before or since. It was a ruse in my mind to supplement hotel income.

Maybe this so called hospitality tax had come in force in Montreal very recently 20 years ago .I am surprised that Eager Beaver has not seen it since. I have paid it in Quebec City many times for stays in reputable hotels on business trips .It could be used to fund promotional expenses for the municipal tourism office and also is meant to cover additional costs that a given municipality incurs from the influx of tourists and out of town people compared to a quiet suburb or sleepy village. I do not think that the Chinatown Holiday Inn would pull a Mexican style shake down on its guests.
Once home, Eager Beaver could have raised his concerns about it with the City of Montreal or the Holiday Inn headquarters for Canada.

 

[EagerBeaver]

Once home, Eager Beaver could have raised his concerns about it with the City of Montreal or the Holiday Inn headquarters for Canada.

I complained to Priceline about it, but it didn't go anywhere. Some customer service rep directed me to some disclaimer in the fine print of their user agreement on hidden local taxes.

At the time I hadn't seen it itemized as it was on the bill. But yeah I think it was a "hospitality tax", in essence.

 

[ykman]

I complained to Priceline about it, but it didn't go anywhere. Some customer service rep directed me to some disclaimer in the fine print of their user agreement on hidden local taxes.

At the time I hadn't seen it itemized as it was on the bill. But yeah I think it was a "hospitality tax", in essence.

Eager Beaver seems to have been lucky to have paid such a tax only once in the past twenty years because according to this Wikipedia article this Mexico style shake down called hotel tax is also common south of our border.At least one of us is now enlightened . Happy New Year to everyone and many heartfelt thanks to you, Cloud 500.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_tax

 

[CLOUD 500]

In Canada there was a form of income tax way before the 20 th century.It was a tax on gross income not on the net profits.

There were no income taxes before 1917. Get your facts straight. There were taxes before but mostly consumption taxes and they were a fraction of what they are today. Society worked very well. It is like saying animals cannot live without a farm. Here is a great article on this subject:

Income Tax in Canada

Federal income tax was initiated in Canada in 1917 to help finance the First World War. The struggling economy and a political crisis resulting from conscriptio...

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

In short WW1 caused the government to borrow lots of money and at one point they started the income tax act to fund the war. It was kind of logical at the time but it was supposed to be temporary. More then a 100 years later it still remains. Not surprisingly, even though the government kept on increasing taxes and adding new ones, the debt kept on increasing.

Public Debt

In 1867 Canada's debt was $94 million and it grew slowly until 1915, when WWI pushed the figure to $2.4 billion. During the Great Depression the debt rose to $5...

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

Direct Quote from the article:

In 1867 Canada's debt was $94 million and it grew slowly until 1915, when WWI pushed the figure to $2.4 billion. During the Great Depression the debt rose to $5 billion, and by the end of WWII it had reached $18 billion. The next period of substantial increase in government debt occurred in the 1980s. Net federal debt in the public accounts increased from $84.7 billion in 1981 to $239.9 billion in 1986. By 1996 it had reached $569.7 billion.

The government should get its spending under control.

Under the french seigneurial system the seigneur had the monopoly on owning and operating a mill.The farmer (censitaire)had to surrender part of was being milled to the mill owner. Moreover the farmer censitaire was obliged to do some work on for free (corvée) for the public good such as repairing roads.

Cloud 500 forgets the definition of theft which in Canada is defined roughly as converting to one use property of someone else without his consent or without colour of right. If taxes are levied by virtue of legislation there is a clear colour of right.

If conversely one accepts Cloud 500s wider definition of theft which includes legalised spoliation by the stare, it would still apply to The Fair Tax system but it would be fair legalised theft .

In Canada,THERE IS NO DEBTORS PRISON. One does not go to jail merely for unpaid taxes. His property will be seized... he may go Bankrupt.To be sent to jail one would need to be convicted of a criminal offence such as tax evasion.

Does the Fair tax act have criminal sanctions such as Jail time for evading the Fairt Tax . Does the Fair tax act guarantee the elimination of tax evasion. Sales tax and GST are not income taxes. Some people are still avoiding and evading them and risk going to Jail if convicted o f evasion.

May Cloud 500 enlighten us ,

You do not know what theft means. Theft is like what a robber does, he threatens to do bad things to you if you do not surrender your money. Government does the same thing, they threaten to do bad things to you also (seize your assets, garnish your wages). When it is taken by force, that is what theft is.

As for your reference to the seigniorial, lol, indeed, taxation and other forms of aggression through government are so taken for granted in our culture that one of our most popular sayings is that "nothing is certain except death and taxes."
Yet slavery was once as universal. Taxation is thought to be indispensable to civilization today, just as slavery once was. Advocates of taxation claim that since most people pay assigned taxes before the guns show up, they have implicitly agreed to it as the price of living in "society." Most slaves obeyed their master before he got out the whip, yet we would hardly argue that this constituted agreement to their servitude. Today, we have an enlightened perspective on slavery, just as one day we will have an enlightened perspective on taxes and other forms of aggression we now think of as "the only way."

"If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a GOVERNMENT, and all their robberies are legalized" -- Lysander Spooner.

See we see one who posted in this thread with Trump Derangement Syndrome blasting Trump about not paying his taxes, well so what? The government was never entitled to his income either way.

 

[CLOUD 500]

You have not read my post carefully or I maybe was not clear enough in which case I apologize.

My post was NOT a comment on or expressing an opinion on whether the Quebec government is or has been spending its budgets wisely. You are dragging me in area of discussion where I have not ventured.

I was seeking enlightenment from Cloud 500 on the question(s) raised in my second last paragraph about the Fair Tax Act system resolving the problem of unwise spending from the government , problems with hhe health sytem corruption potholes.etc. Cloud 500 says currently the Income tax act does not do that but he seems to see an acceptable solution in the Fair Tax Act scheme.

Untrustworthy people whether or not involved in politics will be found pretty well everywhere

In places such as the Gulf Oil states, the Caiman Islands and other so called tax heavens where there is no Income Tax but essentially indirect taxes by way of custom duties ,money squandering by the state, political corruption, favoritism and cronyism are just as possible as in countries with a robust Income tax regime.

Scandinavian countries whose population are heavily taxed more than we are in Quebec, seem to be high in the social development index and low on corruption ranking.

Can one still say that Scandinavians are overtaxed if all the money is well spent?

Like I always said, no one is better at deciding how to spend your money but you. Scandinavian countries have a very high tax rate, they have a big welfare state and to fund it requires a much more broad tax rate unlike the regressive system in the US and Canada. The middle class in the Scandinavian countries get hit hard with heavy taxes, 50% of it is taken away whether you use the services or not. The Scandinavian countries work well because their population is small (no mass immigration or entry of thousands of asylum seekers on a daily basis). But this rosy picture will not last too long, like most rich countries the population is aging. People are living a lot longer then they did a 100 years thanks to medical technology. But that is creating another problem where the ratio of retired people to working class people is increasing. These social benefits services rely on workers paying taxes, at some point there will not be enough money. So what to do? Increase taxes even more making existing people even more poorer or increase the population with immigration creating more poverty due to higher rents, more expensive houses, more expensive food just because there is more demand? The whole system needs to be completely changed. I attached a picture to illustrate a life under government protection and one of freedom and be responsible for myself then having government acting like my parents.. I rather be free.

 

[ykman]

Cloud 500 wrote ''There were no income taxes before 1917...'' what he means is that there was no Income Tax Act. My point about the seignorial system is that there a was already then a form of Tax on the gross income in that the products taken to the seigneurs mill such as grain was not all returned. The portion kept by the mill owner was no only a milling fee but also a form of tax on the gross production of the land.

Still your post was about doing away with the Income Tax and proposed a so called Fair Tax system.
Will a Fair tax system solve the cycle of an aging population increased immigration and inflation? Does it not still amount to theft according to your broad definition of theft ? Will it stop corruption, unwise spending,cronyism?

By comparing the rate of taxation in Quebec to the North american standard do you imply that such North american average or standard is the ideal or optimal one.

People live longer...they can also work longer if they feel their pension or savings is not sufficient to keep up with inflation.There is no mandatory retirement age anymore.

 

[EagerBeaver]

Eager Beaver seems to have been lucky to have paid such a tax only once in the past twenty years because according to this Wikipedia article this Mexico style shake down called hotel tax is also common south of our border.At least one of us is now enlightened . Happy New Year to everyone and many heartfelt thanks to you, Cloud 500.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_tax

Ykman,

I am not sure how often you book hotels, but when I do, it's usually through a third party site like Priceline. Any hotels I have booked on Priceline collect taxes up front and don't distinguish between sales tax, hospitality tax, occupancy tax or otherwise. It's all lumped into a "taxes and fees" category. This is why I was surprised by the hotel tax in Montreal. It hadn't been collected and remitted by the booker. Which is what is supposed to happen per that same Wiki article you posted above. What was supposed to happen, on that occasion didn't happen.

On the few direct bookings I have had in US hotels, I have never seen an occupancy or hotel tax. I recently direct booked at a hotel in upstate NY where no such tax exists, and therefore I did not see a tax which does not exist. It doesn't exist everywhere in the USA, and if you book on 3rd party sites, it doesn't get line itemized like you seem to think it does.

Note that when you price a Priceline hotel room they do tell you what the total taxes and fees are in advance of finalizing the booking. They don't line itemize the taxes before or after you finalize the booking. They may line itemize taxes and fees separately, but not any further to explain or differentiate between different taxes and different fees.