Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Letter from Ignatieff on Income Trusts


Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:17:30 -0400
Subject: Re: INCOME TRUSTER
From: Office of Michael Ignatieff

Dear Mr. Campbell:

On behalf of Michael Ignatieff, we would like to acknowledge receipt of your email
regarding income trusts.

Like you the Liberal Opposition was outraged when the Conservative government broke
its campaign promise to never tax income trusts. This was a reversal that cost
thousands of Canadians, many of them seniors, billions of dollars in accumulated
wealth they were counting on as retirement income.

Since then, we have continued to call on the government for answers, giving the Prime
Minister and his Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, ample opportunity to explain
their actions. Liberals have tried to expose the truth about the income trust
betrayal through questions in the House of Commons and Senate, through Access to
Information Requests, the Finance Committee and a request to the Auditor General. To
date, the government has failed to deliver a satisfactory response to any of the
important questions
Canadians are asking, including proof of the so-called “tax leakage” they claimed
their decision was meant to address.

In the House and Senate, the Liberal Opposition will continue to challenge the
government and secure the information necessary, not only to seek explanations for
the government’s actions, but to help a new Liberal government craft a policy
response that best serves all Canadians in these challenging economic times.

Most recently the Liberal Finance Critic tabled a Question on the Order Paper that
asks the government to revise their calculations due to the numerous trust takeovers
since 31 October, 2006. We are eager to see the government’s response.

Thank you for taking the time to write to the Leader of the Opposition. For more
information on Michael and the Liberal Party, please visit http://www.liberal.ca.

Sincerely,

The Office of Michael Ignatieff, M.P.
Leader of the Opposition
Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like "bafflegab" to me.
No indication, after all this time, that Liberals are interested in restoring the Income Trust model.
By not getting to the root of the lie, at this late stage, speaks volumes.

Anonymous said...

The Liberals would be unwise to relay their plans at this point - and election issue afterall. If they did, Harper would do something to trash it.

Be patient.

Dr Mike said...

Harper & his boys already know the Liberal trust policy basics & still they have not said much to trash it.

The reason??

Harper & his boys are deathly afraid to go there in fear they may have to re-explain tax leakage to a people well-educated in the lie.

Let the Libs shove the trust policy down their throats & do it now.

The choking will be the choke heard round the world.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Reasons not to vote Liberal
And the final reason is...Michael Ignatieff

RuralSandi said...

Anon: 12:18 - you go all over the blogosphere with stupidity like this and yet too "chicken" to show who you are. Therefore, your statements mean absolutely nothing.

Do you work at the PMO or the Harper war room? Probably.

Anonymous said...

Not good enough for this Income Trust Investor.
As a result of this reply, I will be voting Green next election.

Anonymous said...

Anon 10:48 AM'

This cannot be left to become an election issue. History proves this, vis a vis Harpers Lie.

CANADIANS need this to be rectified yesteryear- it should have been the main thrust of any stimulus plan. How simply elegant that would have been. Instead, Canadians are receiving a crippled future with all the tax hikes from every level of government.

Btw, has anyone read Karl Denninger's Market Ticker blog on the carbon credits?
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1171-Carbon-Credits-A-Scam.html

Dr Mike said...

This was the perfect stimulus as it would have put money into the hands of the investor to spend at will , it would have reduced the cost of capital to those in the trust model , & it would have brought much needed revenue into the tax coffers.

This whole trust tax was brought on by the corporate wing behind the gov`t of Canada & the regular folks were left to suffer.

Flaherty & Harper should be ashamed of themselves.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Brent,

This is all nice and I am glad that they are pursuing the issue in the House. But there is not a single word about what they would do to rectify the situation.

YF

Fillibluster said...

YF

No commitment in this letter at all. However I have seen earlier versions of form letters from Ignatieff on the trust issue that I have not posted.

This version is noticeably improved over past versions because it makes the comment about “so called tax leakage”.

Brent

Anonymous said...

but he says nothing about what McCallum has been saying.....ie that we will essentially revoke the Halloween tax......& reinstate Income Trusts the way they were which was so beneficial for Canadians needing income & for business to raise capital....I told my candidate if Libs do not reinstate trusts then they may get my vote but no money & no help......he talks of crafting a new policy whatever that means.......anyway I now hold ITs that are IPS in USA & are exempt anyway..........

CN

Anonymous said...

Re: Liberals "Trust Unit" tax position.

While it was nice of the Ignatieff Office to reply to Mr. Campbell's
letter it was, in fact, a typical "say nothing" P.R. release.

This "continuing to call on the Government for answers" is a sham
of defence that they have been perpetrating for several years. If the
Conservatives were going (or able) to provide evidence, they would
have done so many months ago. To imply that that is all they can
do is misleading.

More than ample evidence of false interpretation of "tax loopholes" etc.
has been provided by independent and objective analysts from the
accounting, economic and income-tax professions.**

If, based on this plethora of evidence, the new Liberal government
still cannot "craft a policy of response" to correct this injustice born
by many hundreds of thousands of retired Canadians, then they
obviously are not capable of doing so.

This would indictate to me that they are still a directionless political
party not yet ready to administer the affairs of Canadians.

W. W.

P.S. **This is even more aggravating when one thinks of the Billions of dollars "given" to a much smaller number of CAW workers, along with the now guaranteed pension benefits that where denied and taken away from the rest of us already retired persons. CRAZY !

Fillibluster said...

Torybaiter:

Can I tell ypu about the current hot issue item in Montana?

No, but then nor am I aspiring to be Montana's leading internet search engine, the way that Google is in Canada.

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