Amidst the plethora of media reports on "payroll tax" increases for 2012, there was little mention of increases in benefits.

For example, the Toronto Sun, cued by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, reported:

If you feel a hand grabbing at your wallet next week, calling the cops won't do any good because it's the federal government picking your pocket.

It's that time of year again when tax collectors at the Canada Revenue Agency, at the behest of their political masters, siphon more from the pay stubs of Canadians while giving corporations a New Year's bonus.

When it comes to the Canada Pension Plan, a major talking point from the right is that the CPP has "unfunded liabilities," with the implication that it is not affordable and financially unsustainable. This is nonsense, a scare tactic based on an accounting fiction that counts only future expenditures but does not count future revenues.

For example, John Robson writes in the Ottawa Sun just the other day:

The case for expanding benefits under the CPP as a needed response to the crisis of private pensions continues to win expert support -- even as the financial industry and small business lobbies continue to fight real pension reform tooth and nail.

StatsCan has released an interesting paper, "The Income Management Strategies of Older Couples in Canada." It looks at who controls the family finances in couples with one partner aged 45 and over. (They used the age cut off because a special question was added to the General Social Survey which is restricted to that age group.)