ahzdeen

Nope, just do what they just did. Slip it in there with no one noticing. Tax rate on $150,000+ income just jumped to 45.8% "temporarily".

From the sounds of his original post, he just picked a number. He could have said "If I make $1m and the government gets to take $417,100 of it" and the point still stands. Maybe you can explain it to me since I seem to be such a cruel, heartless, and worthless human being. Between these two statements, if you equate people with higher incomes and those that are more able to pay taxes, I don't see where the difference is (other than, as stated, the inclusion of the word "some"). I'm genuinely curious as to where you see the difference?

Because picking an arbitrary number of $100,000 does not show the full picture of how the tax system works. The idea of a progressive tax is that the percentage of tax you pay increases as your income increases. I also picked an arbitrary number of $1,000,000 to illustrate that point. I don't see the difference between what you said and what I said other than the word "some". I guess I wasn't clear on how much of the tax burden shifted.

Right, but the bigger your income is, the closer you get to the marginal rate being your actual tax rate. For example, if you make $1,000,000, your actual tax rate is 41.71% where your marginal tax rate is 43.70%. As you said, this shifts the tax burden to those with higher incomes.

Those are federal tax rates. There is additional tax depending on which province you reside in.

Fair enough. I don't know enough about Norway's situation to comment.

I'm not quite sure how that fits into the conversation?

I like that just because you say it's true, it is. As someone who is not a tax accountant, but as someone who works with people who work in the field, I can state that your idea of what a tax accountant does is very off base. Being a tax accountant is no where near that interesting. It's mostly just filling out paperwork. You have not given a dollar figure, no. But it's interesting that you can tell that people how they should live their lives. They shouldn't have as much money as they do. They don't deserve the wealth that they have earned. Funny thing that. Funny thing about morals is they can be manipulated easier than play-doh. I have not questioned your integrity. I have questioned your "facts" when you have stated them as you have not nearly backed up your statements as much as you seem to believe. I don't believe that anyone is taking a moral high ground here, and neither do I need to. My point there was I wasn't going to continue to comment on the fact that you have, at multiple times, insinuated that I am greedy, that I lie, and that I cheat, that I am stupid, and that I am selfish. Sounds like you're on shaky ground there too. You seem to think of yourself on this "moral high ground" but you may want to step down and take a look at yourself. Have you? I read up a bit more on the case. Again, you state that he has paid $30 in tax. However, the article makes no mention of the taxes that he paid previous to that court case. Here's an excerpt from the court case that I found after just a cursory search. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s49926.htm I also like how that article quotes that "The tycoon told a parliamentary inquiry at the time that if anyone did not seek to minimise their tax liabilities, "they want their heads read"." Talk about cherry picking your quotes. Here's the full quote. "Of course I am minimising my tax. And if anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax, they want their heads read, because as a government, I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra! " (http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1538560.htm) Can you explain to me the difference between starving and not having enough to eat? Also, could you provide where you got those numbers from? I looked at http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats and saw that the numbers are different from yours. Of course this is horrible. I do feel very privileged to be born into the situation that I am in. However, taxing the rich isn't going to solve their problems. If that's your problem with the rich, then you're looking for a world-wide body of taxation/collection and redistribution. Who gets to decide what is just and what is fair? Pittances in tax? I provided you earlier with statistics that say otherwise. If they worked for it, why would they not be entitled to it? Now do I find it right if they came to make those fortunes while stepping on others? No. However, being rich itself is not inherently an issue to me. Some of your comments lead me to believe that you believe that no one should be allowed to be rich. That others have just as much claim to that money as those that made it. From certain perspectives, that could just look like people being jealous of rich people.

I said I was an accountant that did more than just taxes. You came back with This proves to me that you have no idea about what accountants do and therefore would be highly doubtful that you looked into the profession at any level or depth. You have not stated communism explicitly, no. However, a lot of your rhetoric matches up with communism's ideals quite closely. Planned production quotas, severely lowered wealthy accumulation opportunities, highly amounts of distributed wealth. Not to mention the idea that you claim to know what people "should" be able to live off of and can't possibly spend in their lifetime. I'm going to take the high road here and give you a pass at calling me stupid, selfish, and greedy. My point is already made when you have to result to name calling like a child. You have given one example and painted everyone with the same brush. You like to use the word "unjust" but I don't know if you know what that means. Also, the $30 was the ruling of the court. This is in addition to taxes that he's already paid. Billions? Care to back that up? Homeless World Cup says it estimates 100 million worldwide in 2005. (http://www.homelessworldcup.org/content/homelessness-statistics) What's unjust is that you want to take away money that people have worked for and want to give it to others. 2 sides or a coin, no? Good for you. I applaud your generosity. Many rich people give to charities as well. I still don't understand where I bend over for big corporations? We haven't even talked about corporate taxation. In order to be a parasite, you have to be benefiting from the expense of another. I would argue that the system is parasitic in the opposite direction. Let's look at some facts instead of hearsay. Taking information from http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/ff285.pdf we can see that the top 1% of income earners paid 36.7% of all tax paid (not including corporate taxes). The top 5% of income earners paid 58.7%. The top 10% paid 70.5%. The top 25% paid 87.3%. Wait, who are the victims of an unjust tax system here? The more this discussion continues, the more the trick-or-treat example seems to fit.

Based on your automatic assumption that accountants only help people avoid taxes, I find it hard to believe that you have looked into the field at any length or depth. You're right, people will always want to make money. They will always want to make more money. That's how the system works. And as Communism in the USSR showed, that's how human nature works. Highest tax rates in Canada range from are 54.75% (Quebec) to 39% (Alberta). So people here are already paying those sort of tax rates that you think they should pay. The US is anywhere between 39.6% and 55.9%. You claim to want to state facts, but your rants about rich people paying their "fair share" doesn't hold water. Like Stalin? That seemed to work.. sort of. You really can't see the analogy there?

No, it means that they'll do it illegally on the black market and the system will fall apart.

Right... Like I said, just because I'm an accountant doesn't mean I'm blackmailing governments or helping people evade taxes. You have a very negative impression of what accountants do. My life is nowhere near that glamorous or exciting. Who needs them? People need them. Why? Because they create jobs. No businesses = no jobs. No jobs = no money let alone taxes. In a capitalist structure, they are one in the same.

You've just taken away the incentive to work harder.

Haha... you tell the rich to piss off.. then where does the tax money come from? You think just because there's no industry that someone will come in and fill that void? They won't. They'll just move to a country that wants them there and they'll take their money and industry with them.

Accountants do more than just taxes. Such as record keeping and analysis for businesses. Tax accountants do not help people avoid paying taxes, their principle job is to collect and verify information to fill out tax forms. You seem to look at rich people as evil money-grubbing people who want to avoid taxes at all costs. In my experience, that has not been the case. Rich people already pay almost half their income in taxes. I would say that's more than their fair share. Now get everyone to pay the taxes that they owe and you might have a better case.

I don't even know where to start with this one. Sounds like a good way to ruin a country by chasing out all the rich, productive people and have a country full of people looking for handouts. I'm also not sure which country this applies to as $30/month in old age security which gets phased out at $1000/year of income is ridiculously low. Limiting fortunes? So what happens when a guy's company continues to run when after he's made $10m? It just gets taxed at 100%? And that's going to make people want to work? That's going to make people who make that much money (or have companies that make that much money) take root in this country? Limiting "over-production"? 1-2 month vacations? 5 hour work days? Sounds like Italy and Greece.. how is that working out?

Because I'm an accountant I'm helping people avoid paying tax? How do you know I don't work for the CRA? That would make it counter-productive for me to help people avoid tax, wouldn't it? (I don't, but just because I learned the system doesn't mean I manipulate it). You have still failed to give me any information that Canadians are shirking their tax responsibilities. If you look at the methodology of the study (here, I'll like it for you since you didn't.http://www.tackletaxhavens.com/Cost_of_Tax_Abuse_TJN_Research_23rd_Nov_2011.pdf) it talks about how they came up with the tax evasion numbers based on how big the "shadow economies" are estimated. These "shadow economies" are (by their definition) Now, sure, some of that is tax evasion. Most of those points are not. They also encompass the "cash economy" with are mainly small businesses, not rich people.

Hey, Canada comes in at number 11 for tax evasion. Look where Canada falls in worldwide GDP? (I'll give you a hint, it's number 11). I also find an estimate by someone called the "tax justice network" less than compelling or unbiased. Any information on their methodology? Not to mention that they think the world is losing $3.1 trillion in taxes when the world GDP is ~$72 trillion (over 4% of the world's GDP is tax evasion?). That report seems like it's talking about the "shadow economy" or the "black market". That's not tax evasion, that's criminal. I am an accountant. I do more than just tax.

Canadian residents are taxed on their worldwide income. There is no such thing as a "tax haven" for Canadian residents. Tax havens are knowingly hiding money from the government. Like I said before, you're always going to have criminals at any level of income. You can't paint them all with the same brush.

Of course there are always going to be people slipping through the cracks. Just like there's always going to be crime, there's always going to be people dodging taxes. But that's not just a high income/net worth problem either.

Pet peeve of mine where people parrot what they hear about America and attribute it to everyone else as well.

This point is about actively breaking the law. Canada has GAAR (General Anti-Avoidance Rule) that CRA can use to come after people using "creative" tax planning. This is talking about flaws in the US system as a whole. Canada does not have mortgage interest deductibility. This isn't even a point, it's conjecture. The point is "this guy has a lot of money and we don't know where it came from, it must be fishy." As I said, I'm commenting on how people say this about rich people in Canada and I have yet to see someone argue the point without bringing up US examples that don't apply to Canada.

Ugh. I guess I'll go through this. Most of that article relates to the US, but I'll take a look at it from a Canadian angle. Also, I find it funny that they skipped (or you omitted) #5 so this "top 10" list is actually a "top 9" list. Oh pageviews. This point is stupid. This is a tax deferral, not tax avoidance. You have to pay tax eventually when you pull the money out of the company (whether through dividends or salary). What good is being a billionaire if you can't access any of that money? Sure, you could borrow money against the asset, but what money are you going to use to pay back that loan? Bank's don't give out loans without repayment terms. This scheme doesn't work in Canada. When you're paid in stock, the full value of that stock is taxable income. Any gain on those stocks is then capital gains (except stock options where the benefit is fully taxable). This is to simplify things. Why does it matter if someone is wealthier on paper? Stocks don't just go up in value, they fluctuate. Are you supposed to report a gain and a loss everytime the stock moves? Until they take that money out, they can't use it. You don't just get to call something a capital gain and tax it at a lower rate, there are rules for that. As for the entrepreneur example, if he just sits on the property, it doesn't do anything. It's only theoretically worth money. And paying interest on borrowed money that the banks then pay taxes on. Also, there are consumption taxes. The deferral of tax on likewise exchange is only until he sells that property or he dies. Then the gain from the original property value is taxable. In Canadian law, you get to designate 1 piece of property as your principle residence and you get any gains on that are tax free. Canadian law does not have this estate "step up" provision. On the death of the spouse, the estate tax is payable on the original asset value if they haven't been disposed of (and tax paid) already. This is starting to get repetitively stupid. Using this example of a charitable trust set up for a child, the child still pays income tax on their salary.

That's not true. You don't get taxed again on money you already own (except for death, I guess). Even capital gains taxes are taxes on "new" money. I know plenty of rich people who got rich by just getting into the right assets at the right time. Real Estate/Hospitality, technology, etc. Not every rich person operates like Wal-mart, Nike, etc.

I don't understand how being wealthy = dodging taxes? Do you think people get rich because they dodge taxes? Edit: And to clarify, I'm talking about the Canadian system.