kramer@utai.UUCP (Bryan M. Kramer) (08/14/84)
<741@ubc-ean.CDN>:" ... make as much sense
as taxing water"
Actually it would make very good sense to tax water:
a) it is a scarce resource and getting scarcer: water tables
are shrinking, lakes are getting polluted etc.
b) money to purify it is very scarce so we don't get
the best water
c) it costs a lot to supply water to industry, a cost that
they do not have to figure in their investment
d) it costs even more to process waste water. Again there
seems to be no money available to do so. This has a
very strong effect on a)
Clearly water should cost everyone a lot more.
--
Bryan M. Kramer
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A4
{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!utai!kramerthompsm@utecfa.UUCP (Mark Thompson) (08/14/84)
C'mon Jim you don't expect the government to introduce a flat tax rate. That could lead to a simplified tax system which could end up costing thousands of Canadians their "jobs". Fairness, sensibility and simplicity are certainly not goals strived for by Revenue Canada. Why do you think that when you donate money to help starving children you only get a tax DEDUCTION while when you donate to a truly needy political party you get a tax CREDIT? The best you can do is to try and take advantage of everyone deduction available and get back as large a refund as possible. No point in donating extra money to an already bloated governMENTAL system. ________________________________________________________________________________ I wonder what the upcoming debate on women's issues will be like. Quite frankly the whole idea is ridiculous anyway. Most issues including those that are likely to be debated this week concern both sexes not just one. They certainly didn't call the first two debates Men's issues. I hope we don't hear too much garbage regarding this notion of equal pay for work of equal value. The idea (which by the way is not simply a women's issue) is unsound simply because of the problem of defining work of equal value. I certainly support the ideas of equal pay for the same job and equal opportunity (no affirmative action please) but to say we should necessarily pay a secretary the same as a truck driver (just an example) makes no sense. Employees are paid what the marketplace commands (except for some government workers - ie. post office). You can just imagine what it would be like if for example everyone asked for the same pay as a postal worker and it would certainly be justified under the precept of equal pay for work of equal value. If women are concerned that on the average their pay is only 60% of a man's then they need to direct their efforts into getting women to enter fields previously thought to be almost exclusively male. I recall fairly recent news concerning the fact that a many female high school students fail to maintain their science and math studies through to their last year of high school. This in turn automatically deprives them of something like 75% of available careers(many of which are traditional high paying ones). Hopefully it is here that the effort will be made to try to bridge the income gap between the sexes. I may add that the number of female students entering the Engineering Faculty at U. of T. seems to be increasing considerably.
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (08/14/84)
In article <741@ubc-ean.CDN> robinson@ubc-ean.CDN (Jim Robinson) writes:
~| My last suggestion is to implement a flat income tax rate. This will have
~| a double pronged effect in that ...
~| b) The disincentive that presently exists for those making above a certain
~| amount to work any harder would disappear and would undoubtedly result
~| in increased productivity on their part which will in turn result in a
~| healthier economy.
I'm not sure there's such a disincentive. Since the 1981 budget
changes the top marginal tax rate is about 50% in all provinces
outside Quebec (combined federal and provincial tax). 50% is
a big bite, but not so big as to discourage work.
Dave Sherman
Toronto
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davedave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (08/16/84)
In article <157@utecfa.UUCP> thompsm@utecfa.UUCP (Mark Thompson) writes:
~|
~| C'mon Jim you don't expect the government to introduce a flat tax rate. That
~| could lead to a simplified tax system which could end up costing thousands of
~| Canadians their "jobs". Fairness, sensibility and simplicity are certainly not
~| goals strived for by Revenue Canada...
Just for the record, Revenue Canada doesn't make the laws or the
regulations, it just collects the tax. The Department of Finance
is responsible for our wonderful tax system. Revenue makes
submissions to Finance requesting changes, but so do lots of
other groups, and Finance doesn't always draft the legislation
Revenue would like to see.
Anyway, Mark is right. I wouldn't have the job I do if the
tax system were easy to understand!
Dave Sherman
Toronto
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!daverobinson@ubc-ean.CDN (Jim Robinson) (08/20/84)
> Recently Prime Minister Turner announced the 'First Chance' program to > provide youth with initial job training. It's supposed to provide > training for zillions of unemplyed youth so they won't be turned down > from a job just because they don't have any experience. > > What good is this program???? Besides wasting humungous amounts of > govt money (I seem to recall $1 billion after a couple of years) all > it does is provide youth with training for non-existent jobs. The > guys with experience will just get shuffled bit further back in the > unemployment line. > > Shouldn't the first priority be job *creation*, not redistribution? > Start public projects or something (I can think of quite a few streets > that need repaving...) Tom Haapen is correct in pointing out that all the training in the world is not going to help people if there are simply no jobs out there. However I strongly disagree with his proposal that the government should be involved in job creation ( read make-work ). The government is simply not equipped to create permanent jobs in the private sector and public works projects are merely a way of postponing the inevitable crunch since there are deep rooted problems in the economy and in all probability it will not be enough to just wait out this bust we're going thru. What the government should be doing is trying to create an enviroment which facilitates the creation of new businesses and the growth of present ones. Unfortuneately, I cannot pretend to know just how to do this, but I think a certain amount of deregulation is a first step. The Liberals were on the right track with wanting to deregulate the airline industry, but have so far merely paid lip service to the idea. Over-regulation often has the effect of reducing competition among the various players, and competition is an essential ingredient in a free market system. Another move in the right direction would be for the federal and provincial governemnts to drastically reduce their taxes on gasoline. I can sort of understand high taxes on alcohol and tobacco since they are considered to be "sin taxes" and those commodities are certainly not essential to the well being of the country ( or for that matter the person that uses them ). But, to tax gas at the present horrific rate seems to make as much sense as taxing water. Gasoline is the lifeblood of an industrialised country and over-taxation of it cannot help but produce a downward pressure on the economy. It's really quite amazing to compare what we pay for gas in Canada to what is paid in the US especially when you take into account that the gas purchased from Alberta is about $2 a barrel cheaper than imported gas. My last suggestion is to implement a flat income tax rate. This will have a double pronged effect in that a) From then on EVERYBODY would have an interest in seeing that their tax dollars are being put to good and efficient use (e.g. is it really necessary to create a new position for Eugene Whelan in Italy just because he wanted to be Prime Minister ), and b) The disincentive that presently exists for those making above a certain amount to work any harder would disappear and would undoubtedly result in increased productivity on their part which will in turn result in a healthier economy. ( Of course, it would be necessary to increase the standard deduction so that the truly poor are not hurt by this change. ) I am expecting to hear some rather heated replies concerning this suggestion. Unfortuneately, the Tories and the Grits are presently hell bent on seeing which of them can regurgitate the greatest number of worn out ideas. The didn't taste too good the first time around, and they don't taste too good now. In case you haven't guessed from the above, my personal opinion is that the people best qualified to spend taxpayers' money is the taxpayers themselves. This was at one point termed supply side economics. Then when Ronnie adopted it, it was derisively called Reagonomics. Then, when the US economy took off like a 747 it went back to being supply side economics. The idea which has the least merit is increasing taxes, which is precisely what will happen on October 1st when Marc LaLonde's silently ticking tax time-bomb goes off and the price of nearly everything that you and I buy on a day to day basis goes up. J.B. Robinson