Canadian Issues DAVID DESCÔTEAUX
Are Canadians Getting Their Money’s Worth?
This tax bill has grown much
faster than any other single expendi- ture for the average family. Between 1961 and 2016, expenditures on shelter rose by 1,527%, clothing by 677% and food by 639%. Over the same period, the average
family’s tax bill soared by more than 2,000%. The hike in taxes also greatly outpaced inflation, which increased 718% during this period. In 1961, the average Canadian
family earned $5,000 and paid 33.5% of this amount ($1,675) in taxes to the various levels of government. In 2016, the same family brought in $83,105 but paid out $35,283 in taxes, or 42.5% of its income. I will admit that the Fraser
Institute has a penchant for the free market and isn’t known to call for tax hikes. But a person has to be blind or have spent the past decade in outer space to be unaware that govern- ments have dipped deeper into tax- payers’ pockets in recent years. It reminds me of a board game I
played as a child. It was called Operation and the goal was to
I
DON’T HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT, OVERALL, Canadians are heavily taxed — all the more so if you live in an eastern province such as Ontario or Quebec. Do we pay too much, too little or just enough for the services we receive? That’s the question the Fraser Institute researchers have
tried to answer by creating the Canadian Consumer Tax Index, which tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2016. It compiles the many taxes that we pay to the various levels of government, including income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, fuel and carbon taxes paid at the pump, motor vehicle licence taxes, import duties, tobacco and liquor taxes, and the list goes on. The publication shows that the average Canadian family now
shells out more in total taxes — 42.5% — than it spends on basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter (37.4% in all).
20 | CPA MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2017
remove small plastic “ailment” pieces from cavities in a fic- tional patient’s body using a pair of tweezers. If you touched the edges of the cavities, you set off a buzzer. It is as if with each budget, our decision-makers ask themselves how they can better pick our pockets without us realizing it. But where does the money go? There’s no doubt that it pays for roads, schools, healthcare,
etc. However, today, even though we have more services than in the 1960s, each additional dollar spent on taxes seems to generate what economists call a “diminishing return.” In other words, we’re getting less and less for our money. It’s as if more and more people are trying to live off the state and tax- payers. Each pressure group — and that includes some large corporations — defends its own interests, and privileges granted by governments (a subsidy or preferential treatment
Geneviève Côté
Photo: Yanick Dery
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