Saturday, April 25, 2009

Can journalists read a spreadsheet? Do politicians ACTUALLY believe in democracy? Or do they both just fake it?


Diane
 
Thank you for continuing to print the truth about income trusts.  Where are your colleagues?  Why are you the only one who documents how much this terrible decision has cost Canadian taxpayers in general and we income trust holders specifically?

How difficult is it to explain and/or understand that income trusts do not pay taxes, income trust unitholders pay the taxes.  As you are well aware income trust unitholders pay taxes at a much higher rate than corporations do in this country. 
 
BMO Capital Markets did a business trust tax study in Jan 2007 (file attached) showing how much more taxes were being paid by unitholders versus the businesses before they converted to the trust model.  Why can't your colleagues just read the study and tell the truth about the data?
 
Why can't your colleagues just read a spreadsheet (file attached) that shows we have lost the annual taxes on $1.316 billion in distributions?  This is a result of those income trusts that were taken out by non-taxable entities (pension plans, foreign companies etc.).  At a 38% tax rate that is $500,000,000 in annual taxes that are now gone forever.  That is "true" tax leakage and not the "fudged" numbers that the Finance Department created to show tax leakage if they did not tax the trusts.
 
Diane, thank you for continuing to point out the obvious, to tell the truth, bring back the trust model!
 
Les Parsneau
Collingwood, ON

Report of the Standing Committee on Finance

February 2007
39th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

RECOMMENDATION 1


It is imperative that a democratic government be as transparent as possible when levying a new tax so that it can be held to account by its citizens. The Committee, therefore, recommends that the federal government release the data and methodology it used to estimate the amount of federal tax revenue loss caused by the income trust sector.

2 comments:

Dr Mike said...

Journalists reading spreadsheets , hell , I wonder if politicians can read one to save their lives.

I doubt if anymore than a handful have seen the actual tax leakage numbers.

A scary thought , do they even know what income trusts are.

Would they realize the fact that the trust sell-off to outside interests has caused more leakage than Flaherty`s claims.

I wonder how many of them know that the average corporate tax rate is less than 7% while the average tax rate paid by the owners of the trust units is over 30%.

I could go on & on but the point is , are politicians voting on a bill based on knowledge or voting as a block & told how to vote & when.

Methinks the latter.

Dr Mike

Anonymous said...

Wanna become the owner of CanWest? You do! Here's a back-door to taking control.

Sue CanWest for publishing falsehoods about income trusts. Better to do the action in the Excited States where punitive damages are awesome.

There will come a day when newspapers and journalists like Jonnie, Terri and Erik-kiss-couch are forced to realize that telling falsehoods has consequences.

Anyhow, the suit will push CanWest over the edge and it'll be at the bottom of Jumping Pound for the taking.