Today's Hill Times: Income trust issue rages on

Letters to the Editor:

■ Re: “Income trust tax needs to be repealed,” (By Brent Fullard, The Hill Times, March 9, p. 12). It has been a long time since Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made his announcement about taxing income trusts. At this time, the lack of any actual news coverage about this huge deceit shows how incompetent the vast majority of Canada’s reporters are. It seems that the bigger the lie the more gullible the media are and if the lie is told enough times it becomes the truth.

Rick Drysdale
Sidney, B.C.


■ It has been more than two years since the income trust tax was proffered up under the false moniker of the “Tax Fairness Plan.” It seemed innocuous enough, after all , what could be wrong with anything with “fairness” in the title? Unfortunately , for small investors and seniors it was the beginning of a devastation not ever forgotten, as our savings and incomes began to shrink immediately before our eyes and have never recovered. At present , immediate economic stimulus is required to bring the economy out of it death throws. What better way than by removing the unfair burden of the tax “fairness” plan from the throats of businesses and investors everywhere and make available an immediate infusion of discretionary dollars into the market place at no cost to the taxpayer? It would be a win-win-win outcome, for both the short, intermediate and long-term benefit of Canada, and to the benefit of investors, enterprise and taxpayers at large.

Michael Popovich
Rodney, Ont.


■ I will forever be amazed at how quickly the Canadian media abandoned the seniors in this great country who represented the entrepreneurial spirit we keep praising. These folks, for the most part, ran independent businesses and took care to set aside what they thought would be suffi cient to see them through their “golden years.” These were the same people who voted for Prime Minister Stephen Harper when he vowed never to touch the savings of Canadian seniors. Then came that fateful day when the government did a complete turnabout and quite literally devalued the investments of these people by billions of dollars, by declaring war on income trusts, based on a complete fabrication known as “tax leakage.”

John Fallows
Toronto, Ont.


■ Please let me express my deepest gratitude for publishing the column on March 9 entitled, “Income trust tax needs to be repealed.” Unfortunately our esteemed leaders, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty are too incompetent to understand.
As a senior, the day their reign comes to an end, will be a day of rejoicing, and celebration, it cannot come soon enough. This has to be the most incompetent government that Canadians have ever elected. As for fabricating the truth “income trusts cause tax leakage,” we won’t even go there.

David Marshall
Cornwall, Ont.