taxes

Tuesday June 22, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 22, 2021

After a year of pandemic prudence, Canadians likely eager to spend the billions saved

If there is one silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic for Grayham Havens, it was celebrating his two-year anniversary with his wife by purchasing a house last month.

January 18, 2018

All the government restrictions during the pandemic helped him drastically reduce his spending over the last year and begin socking away cash every month. After clearing leftover debt, the couple saved enough for a down payment.

Now, at the age of 40, Havens is a first-time home owner.

“We’re so fortunate, very fortunate, to get something like this,” he said about their grey bungalow in southeast Calgary, complete with a large deck, fire pit and pond in the backyard.

Havens isn’t alone. Canadians have saved a record amount of money during the pandemic, resulting from the combined impact of reduced spending and collecting more money from government support programs.

Havens and his wife were both able to collect Alberta’s critical worker benefit, as he was working in the grocery sector and she was involved in health care.

At the same time, their discretionary expenses — spending at places like restaurants and movie theatres — dropped sharply.

“We started saving thousands every month,” he said. “It started making me realize just how bad we were budgeting our own money in the first place. I mean, money was leaking left and right.”

Not everyone has extra money in the bank — but many do.

In fact, Canadians amassed $212 billion last year, versus $18 billion in 2019, according to Statistics Canada. That works out to $5,574 per Canadian on average in 2020, compared to $479 in the previous year.

The average savings rate jumped from 1.3 per cent of disposable income in 2019, to 14.9 per cent in 2020. In April, May and June of 2020, the savings rate peaked at about 27 per cent.

As a result, credit card balances are down, fewer people are behind on payments and credit scores are up, according to credit rating agency Equifax Canada.

The situation varies greatly from household to household, as there continues to be a deep division between the financial situation of many Canadians. In short, if you were able to keep your job and stay healthy, you were likely to see your finances improve during the pandemic.

“It was easy to save. It was not very forced. I can’t go get my nails done, get my hair done, going to the pubs a lot less,” said Karen Jacobs, who also purchased her first house, with her husband, in February.

They are now renovating the home from top to bottom after saving nearly $1,000 a month during the pandemic, including through lower phone and insurance bills.

The record level of savings is not the only reason behind Canada’s rising home prices, but it could provide a significant level of economic stimulus across the country. (CBC) 

 

Tuesday September 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 29, 2020

Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

October 4, 2016

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.

March 26, 2019

The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

June 2, 2020

The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

The returns are some of the most sought-after, and speculated-about, records in recent memory. In Mr. Trump’s nearly four years in office — and across his endlessly hyped decades in the public eye — journalists, prosecutors, opposition politicians and conspiracists have, with limited success, sought to excavate the enigmas of his finances. By their very nature, the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled. They comprise information that Mr. Trump has disclosed to the I.R.S., not the findings of an independent financial examination. They report that Mr. Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia. (Continued: New York Times) 

 

Thursday September 12, 2019

September 12, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 12, 2019

There is deep angst in Canada ahead of this fall’s election

We may have voted for hope, optimism and sunny days in 2015 but Canadians don’t appear to be very optimistic heading into the Fall of 2019.

August 14, 2014

Canadians do see a strong economy right now. Assessment of their personal finances has gone from 32 per cent positive (Q4 2015) to 46 per cent today and their assessment of their job security has grown from 39 per cent positive (Q4 2015) to 52 per cent today.

On the eve of the writ dropping, one would assume from these numbers that the federal Liberals would very much like to have the 2019 ballot question be: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

But it won’t be, because despite these views and some impressive economic numbers at the macro level, Canadians aren’t optimistic about their longer-term prospects. Pocket-book issues and concerns over affordability are a common thread connecting most of the top issues Canadians identify as priorities: healthcare, the economy, housing, climate change, and taxes.

Our concerns are more than economic. There is deep angst about the direction of the country. Canadians are questioning the value and the very role of government, politicians and political parties in their lives and many politicians are going to run into the buzz saw of growing cynicism once they start knocking on doors. For starters:

January 3, 2014

* 67 per cent (unchanged since 2016) agree that the country’s economy is rigged to the advantage of the rich and powerful

* 61 per cent (vs. 56 per cent in 2016) agree that “traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me”

* 57 per cent (vs. in 47 per cent November 2016) say the country is “going in the wrong direction”

* 52 per cent (up dramatically from 37 per cent in 2016) agree that “Canadian society is broken”

This level of angst and cynicism among Canadians is going to pose a challenge for all political parties. Delivering policy ideas along with messaging to motivate supporter turn-out will be difficult, and they will need to find a balance between positive, forward-looking messages and empathetic, “we get you now” messages.

Imagine if you were a federal candidate hearing this at the door while looking for a vote: “I think the economy is stacked against me, I don’t think you care about me, I think our society is broken and our country is headed in the wrong direction. Tell me how you are going to fix this and why I should vote for you?” (Global News) 

 

Thursday July 26, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 26, 2018

National pharmacare ‘blueprint’ will be unveiled next spring

With more than 100 different public drug plans available across Canada, including Ontario’s recently scaled-back OHIP+, one challenge for a countrywide pharmacare program will be finding agreement on which one will work best, says Eric Hoskins.

Hoskins, the former Ontario health minister who helped usher in OHIP+ and is now in charge of developing a national plan, spoke to Canada’s premiers on Friday about the issue, the same day his advisory council launched wider public consultations online.

“There’s tremendous diversity” out there, he said, noting there are also more than 100,000 private drug plans in the country. A national pharmacare program will offer “the ability to have consistency across the country, so that a child in Ontario can expect to receive the same access to prescribed medications as a child in New Brunswick or in British Columbia or in the Northwest Territories,” he told reporters after the breakfast meeting at the picturesque Algonquin Resort.

“Changes are being made almost every day at the provincial and territorial level … (as they) try to improve access. We are trying to build consensus … so your access isn’t dependent on your postal code.”

Hoskins was joined by Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. Eight of 13 premiers attended the Friday morning session; Doug Ford was not among them.

Hoskins said premiers who didn’t make it sent senior staff, and noted that he just last week met with Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott.

The big question premiers have is about a national pharmacare program is how much it will cost and the cost-sharing arrangement, both of which are still being worked out, he said.

Hoskins said a “blueprint” with full details on the model and pricing will be ready next spring.

Billions of dollars are wasted each year given the competing plans, he said, and a federal plan would see lower costs through efficiencies like bulk purchasing.

Currently, Canada spends the most per capita on prescriptions after Switzerland and the U.S. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Saturday May 5, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 5, 2018

Ontario gas prices approach record high as election looms

The high price of gasoline is a concern right now for many of Ontario’s drivers and voters, giving it the potential to become an issue in the provincial election campaign.

The average price of regular unleaded gas across the province is sitting just shy of $1.37/litre according to data compiled by the Ministry of Energy. That’s just six cents lower than the highest-ever average price that hit the province in late June 2014, shortly after Ontario went to the polls the last time.

PC leader Doug Ford is trying to convince voters that gas prices will soar even further if the Liberals are re-elected.

“We all know that paying $1.50 for gas is what would happen under the Kathleen Wynne government,” Ford told a news conference at a gas station last week. “Kathleen Wynne will have her hand in your pocket every time you fill at the pump. I can tell you, that’s not going to happen on our watch.”  

Ford says his government would bring down gas prices by ending the Liberals’ cap-and-trade program. That would knock 4.3 cents a litre off the price.

However, Ford is not promising to scrap or reduce the provincial gasoline tax, which adds 14.7 cents to each litre. The gas tax brings $2.7 billion into provincial coffers each year, with a portion allocated to municipalities for local transit. Only three provinces have a lower gas tax than Ontario.  

“We were very clear when we took action on climate change that there was a small increase in the price of gas,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said this week in response to a question from CBC News.

She argues that this latest spike is a result of market forces.  

“There’s a very significant vacillation of gas prices,” Wynne said. “It’s very challenging, it’s a private market.” (Source: CBC)