Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Mark Carney exempted Goldman Sachs from Flaherty’s income trust tax

Flaherty’s income trust tax was structured by Mark Carney in such a way that only the little investor was taxed and the big guys were given a free ride. Not only were the big guys given a free ride, this tax was imposed in such a way that the big guys were able to prey upon the small investor and expropriate wealth from the small investor in the amount of some $35 billion. What else might you expect from the architect of Flaherty’s income trust tax, Mark Carney, given he spent his entire career at Goldman Sachs,  prior to his seeking an unelected role in government?


Mark Carney wouldn’t have dealt with a single Canadian retail investor in his entire career and evidently doesn’t care a wit about them and probably perceives them as ripe for the picking. 

Thanks to Goldman Sachs alumni Mark Carney, the mere act of taking an income trust private that was previously publicly held by Canadian retail investors is the means by which large institutional investors liker Goldman Sachs Capital Partners are able to do an end run around the Canadian government and all Canadian taxpayers and avoid paying the 31.5% tax created by Mark Carney, and the person at Finance responsible for the income trust file.

This is nothing more than creating a UNLEVEL playing field, which is the exact opposite outcome of what Flaherty professed his policy was going to accomplish.

Meanwhile these very takeovers of public income trusts by foreigners like Goldman Sachs Capital Partners has diverted the profits of these businesses from the hands of taxable Canadians and into the hands of non-taxable foreigners, with the result that Flaherty has (to date) created $1.2 billion in annual tax revenue loss (ie tax leakage) to solve an alleged tax leakage problem of $500 million. A problem that never existed in the first place, as Flaherty’s bogus tax leakage numbers ignores ALL the taxes that are collected from the 38% of income trusts held by average Canadians in their RRSPs. 

The policy rationale for the tax is a blatant falsehood, as income trusts do not cause tax leakage. It is Mark Carney's contrived tax leakage analysis that causes tax leakage. Mark Carney's tax leakage argument is a false construct whose only purpose was to make it easier for Mark Carney and his political masters to "sell" this policy to the public and dupe the public into acceptance, in order to achieve its real ends that only serve narrow interests.

Goldman Sachs Capital Partners have been investors in a number of publicly traded income trusts that were taken private, like CCS Income Trust

The rip off goes this way. Flaherty announces a tax that wipes off $35 billion of the value of Canada’s 220 income trusts including CCS Income Trust, since all the existing investors of these public trust are faced with a permanent 31.5% tax. Mark Carney has seen to it that this adversity can be exploited by others by the mere act of taking these trusts like CCS private and out of the public market, something that is beyond the reach of retail investors. Why would the same business be taxable at 31.5% as a public income trust, but taxable at 0% as a private income trust, unless the goal was to deprive public investors from alternatives that Mark Carney wants to be the exclusive domain of large private investors like Goldman Sachs? Plus it was done in a way that wealth was transferred from private investors to private investors. $35 billion of wealth to be precise. 

Mark Carney's scheme allows investors like Goldman Sachs Private Capital to scoop up these artificially devalued income trusts from unsuspecting Canadian retail investors and by the mere act of taking them private, the new investors like Goldman Sachs Private Capital are able to evade the payment of Flaherty and Carney’s 31.5% tax.  

Generically  speaking, this type of investing that exploits one time exogenous events is called " Event -driven  Investing". I am sure Mark Carney would be happy to give a speech to his local Boy Scouts troupe about all the riches to be derived from Event -driven Investing. 

This is the same kind of rip off of taxpayers as occurred in Russia during the time of the privatization of Russian industry by a new group of favoured investors who came to be known as oligarchs, This is exactly where Mark Carney spent his formative years at Goldman Sachs, advising Russian oligarchs in how they can rip off the Russian people (via a so called "privatization", in which state owned assets were transferred at below market value to a group of hand picked cronies of the Russian political elite). At least that is what I was told by senior representatives of the Ontario Government were his "privatization" qualifications  at Goldman Sachs when he formed part of the team (along with myself) that had been assembled by the Ontario Government to privatize Hydro One, back in 1999, since Mark had no IPO or public equity markets experience that would have justified him playing any role, in such a large IPO privatization.

Mark Carney took those skills and applied them to Canada in order to deprive Canadians of $35 billion of their life savings and transfer that wealth to groups like his buddies at Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. 

The people at Goldman Sachs aren't successful because they are necessarily any smarter than the rest of us, just a lot more cunning and crooked in many cases and have the audacity to pull off tricks like Mark Carney’s income trust tax, that steals from the poor to line the pockets of the wealthy. 

Where is Canada’s Official Opposition in exposing these corrupt schemes like Flaherty’s income trust tax? Who in Ottawa is defending taxpaying Canadians from the rapacious schemes of groups like Goldman Sachs Private Capital and people like Mark Carney?

7 comments:

Dr Mike said...

I , like many voters , have gone from suspicion of these birds in Ottawa to full blown contempt as they continue to fritter away public confidence when they push their employers , that being us , to the side.

The old Income trust billboard of "Lie , Conceal , Fabricate" comes to mind--in this instance they pushed democracy to the limit , then trampled it to death---issuing 18 blacked-out pages of tax loss proof , then having the Privy Council recall them , made a sham of the whole democratic system & basically told the people to "shut the f--ck up" , something it seems we will have to get used to.

It is sad when the people we elect choose to hide behind the cover of our elected house.

So much for openness & accountability as all parties are the same.

I just wish there was a vaccine for what ails them as I would be first in line to yell "drop em & bend over"---- Mark Carney , you would be first , that weenie Flaherty next.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Is that why they are called 'Golden Sacks'?
Nail on the head...

m.

Anonymous said...

Sent to Diane Francis?

Christ - I think I wrote this to you - it's exactly what I've been saying . . . . nice job. No wonder Goldman traders are able to make money EVERY DAY OF THE QUARTER . . they've already fixed the game in their favour!!

Editor's Note: "created an UNLEVEL playing field"

DH

Anonymous said...

Good article! Very good points!

RC

Anonymous said...

Great brent. Nice summary.

Dylan ratigan show on msnbc at 4pmExposes the daily bail of the financial system.

Your summary beats it.

Let's Press forward big time

JIC

Bruce Benson said...

Carney helped create the Level Playing field and with his boss Flaherty pulling all the strings, POOF, Carney gets plumb job as head of the Bank of Canada. Great job if one can get it. Looks like Carney sleeps well counting 35 billion little sheep.

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