Prof. Laurence D. Booth (Booth@rotman.utoronto.ca)
J. L. Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
105 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5S 3E6
Dear Mr. Booth:
I am a senior citizen who has had the value of my retirement savings severely diminished by the unexpected and unwarranted tax being imposed on income trusts.
In addition, I have lost a portion of my retirement income stream because this proposed tax has caused some income trusts to either disappear or curtail their distributions. Also, when this tax comes into effect, and the income trust investment option disappears, I will the loose the majority of my current investment income stream.
I will then be forced to survive on a small pension income with few options to derive reasonable returns from my reduced retirement savings.
As the government has imposed this income trust tax fiasco on Canadian’s based on the false concept of tax leakage, I am extremely distressed by your misleading comments on CBC Question Period last night.
You stated “the whole of the corporate income tax base was possibly at risk, or at least a significant part of it was at risk.” which seemed to indicate that the government took the proper action to tax income trusts.
I believe that your statement was misleading at the least and possibly a complete fabrication at the most and requires public clarification.
Could you please explain with clarity, the exact risk related to the corporate income tax base?
I for one do not believe that you can as there was no risk to the tax base; in fact real damage to the corporate tax base has now occurred as a result of this fallacious income trust tax proposal.
I believe you have committed a great injustice to all Canadians for making this misleading statement on public television and I believe that you should either prove that there was a risk or apologize publically for making such a serious misleading statement.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely;
Gerry XXXXX (a senior citizen)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Dear Professor John Wilkes Booth, assassin of income trusts and professor at the Rotten School of Mismanagement
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4 comments:
Hey Gerry , nice letter!!
It is just too bad the little guy has been lost in the shuffle & guys like Professor Booth don`t really give flying fig.
I think it may be a cold day in July before many of us get a reply from this guy as I am sure he has been advised against it.
Still , it was a very fine letter.
Dr Mike Popovich
My letter to Professor Booth
Re : The National , Income Trusts
Professor Booth
I watched your response to the piece re: Income Trusts on the National last evening in which you stated that there would be a near total collapse of the corporate tax base if the conversion to the trust model would continue unabated.
I assume from what you say that this must be due to two basic factors , trusts owned by foreigners & those held within pension funds & sheltered retirement accounts where tax deferral rules exist. I do realize that some of this may be conjecture on my part as Mr Flaherty refused to release his tax leakage data in it`s entirety.
Having said this , would not the solution to the tax leakage problem , if it really does exist , be to set regulations in place which would limit the ownership of trusts to taxable accounts (only) where the trust distributions would be exposed to the tax man in the year of their distribution. Also a tax level equal to the corporate tax rate would be applied at source for all those held within pension funds , & for foreign holders. A taxable account similar to an RRSP account would be set-up to move all trusts which presently exist inside protected accounts & move them into a taxable position--all those remaining within protected accounts would be taxable at the corporate rate.
This scenario would allow a free tax flow to gov`t coffers & still allow the existence of FTE for the small investors advantage.
I have heard that there is such an account proposal (the Marshall Plan) which has been presented to the federal gov`t for it`s perusal.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Mike.
Dr Michael Popovich
Rodney Ont
519-785-2194
My letter to the CBC Ombudsman re last nights National Broadcast "Questions to the Politicians".
Dear Mr. Carlin
For starters, I have not received any response from Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor in Chief in response to my complaints. See below. Additionally, no comment has been received from anyone else on your cc list.
Now I must react to the CBC National’s response to ask the politicians a question last night. All I can say is that the episode was a real hatchet job for the millions of Canadians that lost 35 billion dollars of their hard earned money all based on lies and blacked out documents.
So what was the question to be asked of our politician(s) by the CBC? Why was it not mentioned? If I remember rightly, the question was to be asked of the Prime Minister and yet you chose Flaherty. The question never made it to any politician and you automatically assumed it should have been asked of Flaherty. Next, was the lame excuse that Flaherty was unavailable. I don’t think the CBC tried very hard to get an interview. All the CBC did was provide old file footage of Flaherty talking about fairness in the tax system which is nothing but a fabricated hoax to pull the wool over the eyes of the ignorant.
I will try to be brief, the CBC’s handling of the issue was tantamount to criminal breach of trust. I am really upset at the shoddiness and the lack of any semblance of good reporting. This was not good investigative or unbiased journalism. It is to be blunt, a huge cover-up. It was a smear job. Bringing up Telus and BCE had nothing to do with the question. Had you told the truth about Telus and BCE, the public would have known that had these two companies been allowed to become income trusts, the government would be billions of dollars in the black. Interviewing Professor Booth who did not provide any facts to back up his generalized (false or misleading) statements had nothing to do with the question at hand. I, as an informed person on the issue was amazed that there was no effort to mention any facts like the double taxation of Income Trust distributions in RRSP’s while pension plans get off tax free. This called the Tax Fairness Plan where those with pension plans (25%) get the benefits and those without (75%) get screwed . Real tax leakage was not reported and there was no attempt to broadcast any of the true information Brent Fullard had to offer. The public was again left in the dark believing the lies of Flaherty (Harper) talking about fairness in the Canadian tax system. The CBC as Canada’s broadcaster is a total disgrace. They should be ashamed and I have lost all confidence in this organization.
Lastly, I want to know what are you going to do NOW to remedy this situation. Clearly you have a responsibility to ensure the truth is told and any bias be removed from the CBC as our Public broadcaster.
My letter to Professor Booth.
Prof. Laurence D. Booth (Booth@rotman.utoronto.ca)
J. L. Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
105 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5S 3E6
Dear Mr. Booth;
I had the opportunity of watching and listening to your comments regarding the CBC broadcast last night regarding Questions to the Politicians. These questions came from many Income Trust investors who want justice and who were given the opportunity to voice their concerns during this period of a prorogued parliament. Unfortunately no justice was served due to this broadcast. It was filled with misleading comments some of which I believe came from you. You stated that the whole tax base would be at risk or part of it was at risk. Can you please justify why and how you came to this conclusion? Where is your proof? Perhaps you subscribed to this way of thinking because you believed what Flaherty and Harper were saying. Did you do any kind of analysis to support your position and/or the government’s position? If not, you should publically be brought to task for your downright misleading comments. Reports by HLB Decision Economics, BMO, RBC and PwC seem to contravene your statements. Therefore your comments that there was a “possible risk to the tax base (or significant part of it) due to income trusts” is a fallacy. Since the implementation of the so called Tax Fairness Plan there has been real tax leakage where there previously was none. Seems you and many others are stuck in a time warp created by Flaherty/Harper. You are doing nothing to support your position except by resorting to the same old government hype and lies. I do believe that Mr. Brent Fullard is one of the few pillars standing up against government rhetoric and lies. You sir, are doing nothing to dispel the lies and lift the burden of ignorance in Canadian society. As a professor I would have expected more.
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