Steve: Would this tax qualify as a “bad tax”?

Stephen Harper claimed at the G8 summit that all taxes are bad taxes.

Politicians often speak in sweeping absolutes and we only learn of the exceptions after the fact. As such, I would like to know whether our esteemed Prime Minister would consider the following outcomes of this particular tax to be the product of a good tax or a bad tax;

- this tax achieved the polar opposite outcome of ALL of its stated goals and ostensible purposes

- this tax resulted in an overall loss of tax revenue to the Canadian government of $1.2 billion a year presently, soon to reach $7.5 billion a year, when it was claimed that this tax would increase tax revenue

- this tax has induced $100 billion of takeovers of Canadian companies, primarily by foreigners through means that avoid the ongoing payment of taxes in Canada by the new owners and load these businesses up with debt

- this tax caused Canadians to lose $35 billion of their retirement wealth, and the associated loss of some $8 billion in capital gains taxes by the Canadian government

- this tax caused a major slowdown in the drill rig activity in Alberta that persists to this day and brought Canada’s once vibrant IPO market to a virtual standstill.

- this tax eliminated an essential investment choice by Canadians saving for retirement, that was designed to make Canadians more captive to the investment wares of Canadian life insurers’ products, like Manulife’s Income Plus, that was not hedged by Manulife, bringing wanton and reckless systemic risk to that pillar of the Canadian marketplace.

- this tax increased the burden on social services provided by the government by those seniors who now find themselves with insufficient retirement income

- this tax created an unlevel playing field between the 75% of Canadians without pensions (who incur this new tax) versus the 25% of Canadians with pensions ( who do not incur this new tax)

- this tax does not get implemented until January 2011.

Therefore, it is incumbent on Stephen Harper to explain to all Canadians why this income trust tax of his is not being rescinded, in view of his “all taxes are bad taxes” dogma and the masochistic course that he has charted for all Canadians and especially those Canadians seeking to provide income for themselves in retirement after years of hard work.......and paying taxes, which in the case of income trusts are not being acknowledged by the Department of Finance when they conduct their fraudulent “tax leakage” analysis.

What would better qualify as a “bad tax” than an income tax on trust distributions that is being paid to the government at an average rate of 38% and is being valued at the rate of 0%, whose unfair treatment becomes the sole rationale for Stephen Harper’s SECOND tax at the rate of 31.5%, for a combined tax rate on retirement savings/investment in the Canadian economy at the rate of 62%?

Where is the good in that “bad tax”? Who apart from a handful of corporate CEOs and foreign takeovers artists was this tax ever intended for in the first place?

Bad tax meets bad politician, in the form of Stephen Harper.

Stephen Harper has some major explaining to do, or does he want to go down as Canada’s biggest hypocrite and incompetent ever?