Federal Government & Politics | Election 2021 FORUM POLL

[travis3000]

I voted LPC in the advanced voting last weekend. They have no hope in my riding, it will go Conservative.

Overall my preferred outcome is a LPC minority but if we get a CPC minority I won't be overly angry either. If the Conservatives have to win I'd rather it be with a guy like O'Toole over Scheer.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

No, reconciliation is necessary, and, if not, at least sympathy and understanding.

Sure. But what does that have to do with voting? I find it pretty disingenuous to argue that somebody doesn't sympathize with you or understand you unless they vote the way you want. Would you accept that argument from the downtown TO urbanite you're complaining about here?

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

An urbanist living in a 500 sq ft microloft in downtown TO can scream to the tall timbers about wealth taxes, but a farmer sitting on a rural nest egg of $10M might feel differently, since his "fortune" is tied up in land used for his farm, and he actually has trouble scraping together $50k/ year to actually live on. By the books, the farmer might be considered "wealthy", but in actual day to day terms, he is paying himself near starvation wages, and his children are going without. He is up to his neck in debt, and is one poor crop away from bankruptcy and repossessing.

You'd have a point, if any major party was calling for wealth taxes that would hit small farmers. I believe the NDP set their threshold at $20M. But let's say it was $10M or even $5M, aside from the fact that I don't think it'd be very politically feasible, at a lower threshold, I don't see how any such policy could be implemented based entirely on an asset count and completely disregarding liabilities (particularly of someone "up to his neck in debt."). That's not wealth.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The same thing goes for small business owners, many of whom have significant day to day struggles making ends meet. They may make money selling their business in the end (although this is not guaranteed), but in real world terms he has no assured weekly income, and needs to constantly adjust to market pressures to stay afloat. Those people in the downtown microlofts getting a regular pay check with benefits have no idea.

Again, I ask. What exactly are the feds supposed to do? This is the exact kind of generalized whining that I was talking about.

Small business owners have it tough. I know. I saw my father run one for over a decade later in his life. But I have seen zero evidence of any hostility from any federal government towards small business. And in my experience, most of the barriers they come across are usually the result of provincial or municipal policy. It's very rarely the feds. The worst that one can accuse the feds of is maybe benign neglect.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

People need to be more understands of the stresses and pressures of others in society, especially if their own life experiences are completely foreign to the others.

Understand? Sure. I think it's a stretch to assume that people should set aside their own interests and those of their community just to make folks who live thousands of kilometres away happy. I doubt you go to the polls thinking about subway funding in Toronto.

[SpongeG]

I advanced voted last week.

[ShavedParmesanCheese]

I'm working the election, so I was able to vote on the 8th when I had my orientation, for the first time too

[mapleleaf66]

Originally Posted by Jaws

I’m voting CPC and my wife is voting Liberal just to cancel each other out. It’s tough times for a red Tory/blue Liberal…

I hear you.

[CanSpice]

Already voted NDP in a safe NDP riding.

[kel]

I hope it’s a liberal minority propped up by the NDP with a few PPC seats in the west. I like seeing western alienation and a angry Alberta is good for the country as it takes the spotlight off in the rest of Canada on whatever the daily liberal scandal is.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

No, reconciliation is necessary, and, if not, at least sympathy and understanding.

An urbanist living in a 500 sq ft microloft in downtown TO can scream to the tall timbers about wealth taxes, but a farmer sitting on a rural nest egg of $10M might feel differently, since his "fortune" is tied up in land used for his farm, and he actually has trouble scraping together $50k/ year to actually live on. By the books, the farmer might be considered "wealthy", but in actual day to day terms, he is paying himself near starvation wages, and his children are going without. He is up to his neck in debt, and is one poor crop away from bankruptcy and repossessing.

The same thing goes for small business owners, many of whom have significant day to day struggles making ends meet. They may make money selling their business in the end (although this is not guaranteed), but in real world terms he has no assured weekly income, and needs to constantly adjust to market pressures to stay afloat. Those people in the downtown microlofts getting a regular pay check with benefits have no idea.

People need to be more understands of the stresses and pressures of others in society, especially if their own life experiences are completely foreign to the others.

This duality misses huge segments of the population though. A lot of "inner city" type people are working freelance or contract jobs with no benefits, sometimes for less than minimum wage. Many of them have tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. In practice most would be in a much more tenuous position than the farmer in your example, many of them are making far less than $50,000 per year (before taxes) and don't own anything of substantial value that they could sell. I'm not convinced that the main divide is between "hip, out-of-touch urbanists of the Big 6" vs. "normal people of the ROC" - it seems to be more about those who have property, wealth, and some degree of financial/job security, and those who have none of these things. There's also a split between people who vote based on what will personally benefit them the most vs. those who vote altruistically or based on principle - I don't know if this maps out in any clear way though.

It's... a bit hard for me to have much sympathy for someone with a $10M nest egg - that amount of money is orders of magnitude more than I ever expect to have (even "tied up" in stuff like property and equipment). I suppose it's all relative.

I do broadly agree with you that reconciliation and understanding is important and that everyone has their blind spots when it comes to these things.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by kel

I hope it’s a liberal minority propped up by the NDP with a few PPC seats in the west. I like seeing western alienation and a angry Alberta is good for the country as it takes the spotlight off in the rest of Canada on whatever the daily liberal scandal is.

How on earth is that a good thing?

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

No, reconciliation is necessary, and, if not, at least sympathy and understanding.

Perhaps you provide some sympathy and understanding first?

That rant, which gave short-shrift to the majority of the people in Canada;

People who face steep rents and steeper ownership prices (incl. mortgages) that routinely eat 50% of gross income..........

People who face childcare costs far higher than in rural areas, typically in excess of $60 per day, per child.....

People who in the search for affordable and livable housing often endure commutes well in excess of an hour each way, making an 8-hour work day closer to 11 hours....

Never mind those that simply can't make their situation work and end up homeless as over 10,000 are in Toronto; and the more than 160,000 who receive (and require) gov't subsidized housing or they too would be homeless.
Did anyone mention that the wait list for such housing, if you're actually living on the street is 8 months-1 year, and up to 8 years if your single, employable adult without children?

For someone complaining about lack of sensitivity to other people's challenges, you certainly don't show much of the same.

****

An urbanist living in a 500 sq ft microloft in downtown TO can scream to the tall timbers about wealth taxes, but a farmer sitting on a rural nest egg of $10M might feel differently, since his "fortune" is tied up in land used for his farm, and he actually has trouble scraping together $50k/ year to actually live on. By the books, the farmer might be considered "wealthy", but in actual day to day terms, he is paying himself near starvation wages, and his children are going without. He is up to his neck in debt, and is one poor crop away from bankruptcy and repossessing.

Federally subsidized crop insurance is a thing......

And any wealth tax should be calculated on net wealth, and I expect would be. Have you seen explicit language in any platform suggesting it would not?

Assuming it is; your point is moot.

****

The same thing goes for small business owners, many of whom have significant day to day struggles making ends meet. They may make money selling their business in the end (although this is not guaranteed), but in real world terms he has no assured weekly income, and needs to constantly adjust to market pressures to stay afloat. Those people in the downtown microlofts getting a regular pay check with benefits have no idea.[/quote]

Wow.............

Do you know how small a percentage of the workforce gets 'benefits' these days? Pharmacare is not a popular idea because everyone has coverage....

Never mind that the cost of that microloft may be well over $2,200 per month in carrying costs.

Where is this mythical universe where everyone in Toronto is rolling in cash?

****

As to small businesses, the smallest (less than 500k revenues) pay next to no corporate income tax these days.

Small business used to pay the same tax rate as big business.

Today the smallest businesses pay 9% federally and as little 2.5% provincially; and remember that's only on profit, not gross income; the way employees are taxed.

The employee of that small business, before accessing any deductions/grants that they may qualify for will pay at least 25% income tax, on gross income, even if they earn minimum wage.

Talk about a disconnect.

Lets add, big business today pays a combined Fed/Prov tax rate of 25-27% in most of Canada (on profit, not gross income). But in 1960 that number was well over 40%!

People need to be more understands of the stresses and pressures of others in society, especially if their own life experiences are completely foreign to the others.

Yes, you do.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

An urbanist living in a 500 sq ft microloft in downtown TO can scream to the tall timbers about wealth taxes, but a farmer sitting on a rural nest egg of $10M might feel differently, since his "fortune" is tied up in land used for his farm, and he actually has trouble scraping together $50k/ year to actually live on.

There's a bunch of even more fundamental stuff beyond proper accounting of "fairness" or the nuts and bolts of how the administer a wealth tax (it's not trivial to decide what/when/how to tax; the current system has semi-reasonable "tax events" although even those can be quite broken).

One fundamental aspect is whether you think that the rich people get rich by stealing/inheriting or by generating value for society.

Let's imagine somebody invents a portable generator that fits into your pocket, runs for hundreds of years, has no environmental impact, can power an entire house. It is sold for $500. This person sells one to every household on earth, and because it has good margins they become the richest person on earth. The planet becomes a kind of paradise compared to today; pollution goes down, everybody's better off, etc. Do we get out the pitchforks and concoct ways to claw back $50B from this person? Worse still would we have wanted to prevent this accumulation of wealth in the first place?

At the other end imagine you're in Russia in 1991 and some KGB officer extorts a 10% share of Gazprom out of some high ranking government officials. Do we believe this is a virtuous billionaire whose wealth should be beyond question?

I think part of our social aim should be to have the billionaire scenarios look like that first one instead of the second one. People don't seem to talk about that much.

[SignalHillHiker]

I’m an ABC voter. Normally for me (St. John’s East) that’s been NDP for a while. Currently I’m in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, so it’s LPC this time around.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by someone123

There's a bunch of even more fundamental stuff beyond proper accounting of "fairness" or the nuts and bolts of how the administer a wealth tax (it's not trivial to decide what/when/how to tax; the current system has semi-reasonable "tax events" although even those can be quite broken).

One fundamental aspect is whether you think that the rich people get rich by stealing/inheriting or by generating value for society.

Let's imagine somebody invents a portable generator that fits into your pocket, runs for hundreds of years, has no environmental impact, can power an entire house. It is sold for $500. This person sells one to every household on earth, and because it has good margins they become the richest person on earth. The planet becomes a kind of paradise compared to today; pollution goes down, everybody's better off, etc. Do we get out the pitchforks and concoct ways to claw back $50B from this person? Worse still would we have wanted to prevent this accumulation of wealth in the first place?

At the other end imagine you're in Russia in 1991 and some KGB officer extorts a 10% share of Gazprom out of some high ranking government officials. Do we believe this is a virtuous billionaire whose wealth should be beyond question?

I think part of our social aim should be to have the billionaire scenarios look like that first one instead of the second one. People don't seem to talk about that much.

To your example, I counter with the discovers of synthetic insulin....who donated their patent to the University of Toronto.

Or man who created the Polio Vaccine and refused to patent it, as he believed ideas were the common product and property of us all.

It turns out most people don't invent things simply to become singularly rich; and most wouldn't decided not to, if they couldn't become rich.

***

Also, a wealth tax of 1-4% on wealth greater than 10M which is what we're discussing here is not going to deprive anyone of their windfall.

If you have 11M, we're discussing a reduction in that of $10,000-$40,000 leaving you with 10.9M+ (would only apply to the 1M that is over the 10M)

IF you have 11B, easy math, the tax would reduce you, potentially, to 10.6B to 10.9B

Its worth saying, I'm not even remotely close to that kind of money, and I sure as hell get a return on investment better than 4%.....on my investments.

Which is to say, most people in that income/asset bracket would not see any real decline in their wealth at all, just a slowing of growth.

[Hali87]

Still undecided here. I assume the outcome of the election will be either a Liberal or CPC minority. My riding has been represented by Andy Fillmore (Lib) in the last 2 governments and was NDP before that. While I find the Liberal party as-a-whole pretty uninspiring these days, Fillmore has been pretty impressive as an MP and hasn't been implicated in any of the Liberals' scandals or blunders. Notably, his background is in urban planning and design, and his understanding of housing policy is likely quite a bit better than the average MP's. I think that if the Liberals form government again he could potentially be a very important voice.

On the other hand the NDP (as usual, unlikely to form government) are likely to nudge the Liberals a bit more in the overall direction I'd like to see things go.

I don't necessarily dread the thought of O'Toole as PM (I think he could potentially be a better PM than Trudeau but I think the rest of his government would be worse than the current one). In any case, the Cons don't have much of a profile in this riding (I've seen more signs for the Greens tbh). It really is a Red/Orange battleground.

The rest of the province is a bit more of a crapshoot. Lib/NDP seem likely in the 4 main HRM ridings. I would be surprised to see Bernadette Jordan reelected (Minister of Fisheries & Oceans and MP for the riding adjacent to where the main lobster disputes are happening) so South Shore-St Margaret's will likely go CPC, or possibly NDP. I could see Central Nova going PPC although Lib/CPC seem somewhat more likely. The rest of the province feels ambiguously Lib/CPC/NDP. Maybe I'm being cynical but it doesn't really feel like the outcome will matter much in this part of the country - none of the main platforms really seem particularly good or particularly bad for us; we're just "not part of the target market" for all of them equally.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

To your example, I counter with the discovers of synthetic insulin....who donated their patent to the University of Toronto.

It's not really an example to counter. All of these different modes of wealth creation happen. It's great when people work altruistically and we would be better off with more of that. The deeper point is to ask how we can motivate people to generate as much wealth as possible in the first place, and to try to create positive sum situations. Most people who are sold on a wealth tax have done no real analysis; they just know they don't like the idea of some people having as much wealth as they do.

I think on the whole public opinion in Canada is weirdly slanted toward thinking of medium wealth people (for example an average doctor who worked diligently and saved) as fat cats and thinking that their money is directly related to people being deprived of basic necessities when neither of those things are true. The hard-working professionals make society better and their actual consumption is often not that high. Even with a lot of the billionaires their personal consumption isn't even close to commensurate.

Also, a wealth tax of 1-4% on wealth greater than 10M which is what we're discussing here is not going to deprive anyone of their windfall.

If you have 11M, we're discussing a reduction in that of $10,000-$40,000 leaving you with 10.9M+ (would only apply to the 1M that is over the 10M)

Is this a one-time deal? Per annum? There is also inflation and wealth is not necessarily liquid. When are the taxes owed? How are they reconciled with debts? Will this cripple "rich" low margin businesses? Often people will talk about interest rates and incentives that cause people to save or spend. A wealth tax is an incentive for people to consume more and save less.

When we have a wealth tax will we keep our primary residence capital gains exemptions so that people can make $5M in capital gains off of a mansion on the West Side of Vancouver and owe $0?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

Is this a one-time deal? Per annum? There is also inflation and wealth is not necessarily liquid. When are the taxes owed?

Yeah, and there would also have to be a refund system from the government in case on paper wealth goes down after tax was paid on it. (Like, you have a bunch of bitcoin, their value skyrockets, you have to sell off some to be able to pay the wealth tax that year, then it crashes back down to where it was but now you have less than you did.)

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by someone123

The deeper point is to ask how we can motivate people to generate as much wealth as possible in the first place, and to try to create positive sum situations. Most people who are sold on a wealth tax have done no real analysis; they just know they don't like the idea of some people having as much wealth as they do.

I don't believe there is any lack of incentive. I think history indicates we had more useful and breakthrough discoveries before significant patents than after...

Which isn't an argument for abolishing all patents, just to be clear.

Rather, its a suggestion that people are motivated to do things for a wide variety of reasons, and massive wealth is rarely one of them.

Yet still, I'm not advocating the elimination of massive wealth, nor even its significant curtailment; we're talking about trimming at the margins.

****

I think on the whole public opinion in Canada is weirdly slanted toward thinking of medium wealth people (for example an average doctor who worked diligently and saved) as fat cats and thinking that their money is directly related to people being deprived of basic necessities when neither of those things are true. The hard-working professionals make society better and their actual consumption is often not that high. Even with a lot of the billionaires their personal consumption isn't even close to commensurate.

Again, we're talking about the portion of wealth in excess of 10M; very few doctors manage that, and if they do, its quite late in their careers/lives.

The reaction your giving is if somehow someone is proposing eliminating wealth or capping it at 5M; or taking 50% or some such thing.

There is no such proposal on the table. The adverse reaction is not commensurate with the facts.

FWIW, I'm not a particularly big champion of this tax; for reasons that have to do with administrative complexity.

What I would prefer is that Captial Gains be 100% taxable; (this would adversely effect me in a material way) that dividend income simply be regular income, that RESPs and TFSAs were both eliminated, and most tax shelters curtailed. That strikes me as easier and more efficient.

I would also argue for capital gains tax being deducted at-source by brokers.

Reducing evasion/under-reporting. Excess deduction could be reconciled year-end.

However, I would also argue for a higher Basic Personal Exemption/Zero-rated bracket; on the first $25,000 of income at least. That way low-income workers who may not file taxes would still see the benefit with less taken off their pay cheques.

****

Is this a one-time deal? Per annum? There is also inflation and wealth is not necessarily liquid. When are the taxes owed? How are they reconciled with debts? Will this cripple "rich" low margin businesses? Often people will talk about interest rates and incentives that cause people to save or spend. A wealth tax is an incentive for people to consume more and save less.

We completely disagree, and as someone who would feel the effect of higher taxes, I find your take really odd.

I'm not going to go buy a Yacht to reduce my taxes payable when the thing depreciates; If I dine-out (pre-pandemic) with some regularity, enjoying wine w/dinner, I'm not going to dine-out twice as much or buy a more expensive bottle, simply to avoid taxes. I find this argument very odd.

***

Also, no one is proposing a wealth tax on businesses.

That would be considered a 'capital tax' which has been done before; but I digress.

***

When we have a wealth tax will we keep our primary residence capital gains exemptions so that people can make $5M in capital gains off of a mansion on the West Side of Vancouver and owe $0?

No party is proposing removing the principle residence exemption at this time.

There is certainly an argument for doing so, or for capping it.

But that's a political hot potato for the time being.

I think the way through on that is probably a capped exemption (you can use up to 'x' million (let's say 3M) so we can safely cover the vast majority of Canadians, but target the ultra-rich and flippers.)

But again, that is not being proposed currently.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

Yeah, and there would also have to be a refund system from the government in case on paper wealth goes down after tax was paid on it. (Like, you have a bunch of bitcoin, their value skyrockets, you have to sell off some to be able to pay the wealth tax that year, then it crashes back down to where it was but now you have less than you did.)

Maybe we could do a version that's a mix of the sack of Constantinople and those "supermarket sweep" TV shows. If you are rich (Twitter poll to decide?) you have to open your home 1 day a year to a government official who has 5 minutes to run around pillaging whatever they can. Then we would not need these complicated rules.

[Bcasey25raptor]

NDP due to local candidate, endorsing a Liberal Government for the next 4 years,

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

There is no such proposal on the table. The adverse reaction is not commensurate with the facts.

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about the wealth tax. There are just some clear issues with it, listed above, that are usually not answered. The big one being that it's inherently hard to manage (in terms of administration, liquidity, etc.) which you seemed to agree with. It seems like there should be a high bar for introducing a new more difficult to administer type of tax when there are so many existing types.

I do feel like a major component of the drive for a wealth tax is a kind of generalized anxiety or neuroticism that is at its root driven by problems with housing and incomes for certain segments of society. I understand this mood but I don't think that simply adding a new revenue source will fix the underlying problems.

100% capital gains would be pretty punishing since they're not even inflation adjusted in Canada.