chris (02/07/83)
After reading Steve Perelgut's article, I started thinking about some the things that bothered me about this country. Here is my list of reasons for change. I'm sure there are more, better, reasons, if you have any ideas, send me a `write'. (by mail) I thought the word 'facist' that Steve used was well-selected. I have recently heard that, when my wife has our first child, we will not be able to leave the hospital with it unless we can PROVE that we have a CSA-approved children's seat for the car. After going through one miscarriage, we are not crazy about buying one; anyone have one to rent? Sure those seats are nice; but damn it! breaking the law shouldn't be that easy. I guess this law is a result of institutionalized health care, where everyone has to be careful not to allow anyone else to do anything dangerous because they would all have to pay for the hospital treatments. I notice that you cannot drive a car with tinted windows; I guess that makes it easier for the police to see in. Forget about privacy; at this moment an RCMP officer is opening and reading someone's mail. And did you know that the police have free access to your bank's records of your cheques? Better remember that the next time you make a cheque out to an organization that may be investigated in the next 7+ years. Talking to the police officer across the street, this new constitution business is hurting. They can't use illegal evidence anymore! Never fear, though; the provinces are going to see about getting around that. Of course the police were against the constitution => now we can all see (if we aren't too apathetic to care) how many of our laws are so bad that they have become unconstitutional!!! I see in this week's Toronto Star that the Toronto police force is going to begin random spot checks on people out walking. When did they stop? I'm sure many people, like myself, have been stopped at night for some `harmless' questioning. Better have a destination in mind, a fixed address, an up-to-date car license, and so on. In regard to gasoline prices, you may be interested to know that the current Ontario tax is directly pegged to the retail price. The current retail price is about 43 cents/litre; it has fluctated wildly amid price wars, with the price being 31 cents/litre one week ago. It has never gone over 44 cents/litre at any service station I have seen. The current tax is based on a retail price of 46 cents/litre. Come again? Where do all those nickels and dimes end up? Did you know that the Licquor Control Board of Ontario had a net profit last year of $555 million dollars, and that a further $111 million in taxes on licquor went to the Ontario treasury? My neighbour makes rot-gut red wine for $1.00 a bottle; in the LCBO they would charge you $3.50 for a similiar product. Doesn't anyone care? Is wine drinking supposed to be immoral, or what? Did you know that if you have an elderly grandparent, it is illegal to make a seperate-entrance apartment (fridge, stove, washroom) for him/her in your own house (illegal bachelorette is what the province calls them)? And that if you decide to put your grandparent into an institutionalized nursing home, that the province knows which homes have had beatings and food poisoning of their patients, and that there is NO WAY that you can get your hands on this information? And did you know that it is illegal to have a fence around your front yard that is higher than 4 feet if you live in some parts of Toronto? And that it is illegal to hang clothes out to drip-dry on your apartment balcony? I have a neat little litter bag that I got at a tourist area. It has the Ontario Provincial Police crest, and the cute slogan: ``If in doubt, don't.'' That seems to sum up life in a Province that would like to make Walkman's illegal in public, where noone really knows if they can carry a opened beer case in their trunk or not without breaking a law, where radar detectors are illegal, where you have to notify the police (through the ministry of Transportation and Communications) of a change of address within 7 days by registered mail if you drive, and where a bylaw like "more than four people who are not related by family may live in the same domicile" can exist in the city of Guelph. Of course, my parents say Ontario is great. They were used to Nazi Germany. Of course, the province says its great. They want us to buy their overpriced eggs and dairy products, go to their tourist areas and see the polluted rivers, help pay taxes to keep around more police officers than almost anywhere else, run empty GO trains around on leased rail lines, and go to school to get a job. Free speech? watch out for the moral censors, the Christian schools, the well-established community standards. Free travel? okay, just don't do it in a boat unless you want to use a marina at night; don't use a trailor until you find out where the campgrounds are (they are illegal anywhere near Toronto). The conclusion? When we live in a province where there are so many laws, restrictions, et cetera, all of which appear equally arbitrary, and where it is impossible to know all of these laws, then an individual is compelled to act only in ways that he/she knows to be not illegal. Free will is a will'o' the wisp, and actions become prescribed by fears of laws that may or may not exist. From the great white fascist North. Chris Retterath.
henry (02/08/83)
Specifically on the matter of privacy, an observation that Fred Pohl made a while ago is germane: the battle is already lost. The battle was lost as soon as the income tax rates got high enough that deductions and exemptions became a political necessity, and the tax collectors therefore adopted the guilty-until-proven-innocent rule. If you want your life to be private from the government, the single most important thing you can do is fight for flat-rate income taxes. Henry Spencer
mabgarstin (02/08/83)
In response to flat rate income tax I give a hearty "Here, here!".
I say everyone, every company across the board pay a flat rate of say 20% or
maybe 15% tax and divide up another 5% between UIC, OHIP, etc.
The only problem I see is that charities would then become what they are
supposed to be (i.e. NON-PROFIT). The public aux general is not as altruistic
as the present tax structure would have us believe. One could say then that
an individual or company could then deduct up to, lets say, 5% for charity
(that is to say 20% income tax becomes 15% income tax because 5% is charity)
but that was how all this mess started in the first place, the government
trying to make us do something that we really don't want to.
H**ls Bells, I would like to see a bit of a backbone in the government
for once and let us manage on our own for awhile. These parliaments
remind me an awful lot of my mother, telling me what is right and good for
me. I'm about to turn 27, I've been married for over 2 years, I'm about
to graduate and I own my own home yet my mother still tells me that I'm
not old enough to know weither or not I'm trully in love with my wife ( she
wants me to get a divorce ) she thinks that I don't know what I really want
to do in life as a vocation and she does and thinks that I don't know to
handle money despite the fact that I do own a home and I've never had a full
time job in my life. Sorry for the little dialogue-diarrhea but isn't that
how you feel about the government, always on your back about something when
you would like them just to leave you alone so that you can get on with
living?
Please send all flames or letters of support to the "Elect MAB for prime
minister campaigne".
c/o MAB
watmath!watcgl!mabgarstin
in the graphics lab at the University
of Waterlooshinbro (02/10/83)
I would like to point out, in terms of a flat-rate income tax, that 15% of $5,000 a year is far more painful to pay than 15% of $500,000 a year. This is why a tax such as you propose is called a "regressive" tax. I don't intend to give a lecture on the history of income tax (which is not all that old), but if you were just barely making ends meet, I suspect you would resent paying tax at the same rate as a multi-millionaire. There is such a thing as paying too great a penalty for reducing bureaucracy, which I think was the original reason for someone making this proposal on the net. (I might also mention that there would be a significant amount of paperwork involved simply in proving that the declared income is correct. That's the most tedious part of filling out income tax forms anyway, in my opinion. The calculations are easy, once you have collected all the paper in one place.) Mia Shinbrot Microtel Pacific Research Vancouver ...!ubc-vision!mprvaxa!shinbro
tjiang (02/11/83)
"Flat rate" taxes are not regressive as a recent article claimed. The current so called "progressive" tax laws actually benefit the rich. I know that corporations pay very little taxes. In the USA, corporations account for only 9 percent of the entire federal revenue and there is no reason to believe that it is any different in Canada. I suspect that not one single millionaire in Canada pay more than 15% in taxes. They manage to evade taxes by using loopholes that results from the current complex tax regulations. A flat tax where everybody hands over a fixed percentage of their income and where all those deductions are eliminated would remove the tax loopholes. Many American economists claim that such a tax system would actually increase their federal revenues and would lower the taxes paid by the middle classes (i.e professionals like most people on the net) that currently pay the bulk of the taxes. The result is that the rich would actually pay their fair share. It would also simplify and remove much of the bureaucracy that collects and handles taxes, saving billions in the process.