Monday, March 16, 2009

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■ Re: “Income trust tax needs to be repealed,” (By Brent Fullard, The Hill Times, March 9, p. 12).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Please let me express my deepest gratitude for publishing the column on March 9 entitled, “Income trust tax needs to be repealed.”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.

4 comments:

Dr Mike said...

Yay for our side!!!

Let`s just hope someone is listening.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Liberals incessantly lie. Why the big deal when Conservatives allegedly lie?

Dr Mike said...

A 35 billion lie is not just a fib but the whopper to end all whoppers--it was the biggest one policy hit in the history of the markets anywhere.

I do not condone lying by anyone especially politicians who I believe should be prosecuted for their actions & be required to forfeit their pay for egregious policy blunders.

Liberal or Conservative bad policy is still bad policy & should not be tolerated.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Well done. Thanks to all those who responded to Brent's editorial. Next time we simply need a young female, income trust investor - preferably with a Quebec address to respond. Next time I will try and get my sister to do something - she matches all that criteria.

Anonymous ... this is an Income Trust forum. You need to go back to 2005 and analyze how all political parties had an influence on this issue. You will find the answer to your own question. If you actually spent some time on the CAITI website - it would become very obvious what the problem is with the current Conservative government. With the exception of myself for sure - a lot of people who follow this forum are CONs but not supporters of SH or Jim Flaherty. Most are especially pissed off about this issue as they would not have voted CON if they had known Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty had no intention of keeping their election promise with regards to income trusts. Maybe that helps?

Sounds like you need to get a better grasp of English Canada's politics, but thank you for joining this forum and leaving your comment. It demonstrates the power of the internet and that there is still a shred of democracy in this country.