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Columnists

The growth of extreme inequality in Canada

There was always skepticism about claims that, as the rich became richer, income would "trickle down" to others. What wasn't perhaps foreseen was that the trickling would actually be in the other direction, and that it would be more of a torrent than a trickle.

But the evidence is now clear. Over the last three decades, the tables of the rich have overflowed, with barely any scraps falling off. On the contrary, there's been a massive transfer of income and wealth from Canada's middle and lower class to the rich.

The result is that Canada has become a highly unequal society.

Columnists

We need inspired political leadership to champion greater equality

Nobody ever accused Barack Obama of having too stiff a spine.

Even so, there is something crushingly disappointing about reports last week that the U.S. president is likely to retreat from his promise to cancel George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

Such a capitulation to the Republicans would concede defeat before the battle to achieve greater equality and to "spread the wealth around" is even waged. The audacity of hope seems to have turned into a readiness to choke.

Obama's promise was a modest one -- to push the top marginal tax rate from 35 per cent back up to its Clinton-era level of 39 per cent.

Columnists

Restoring inheritance tax could raise education revenue

Almost 40 years ago, Ottawa quietly cancelled Canada's estate tax.

Few Canadians even knew about the tax. Those who did mostly belonged to a small number of wealthy families who were rich enough to pay it. With its cancellation in 1972, this tiny crowd was suddenly a lot richer.

U of T economist John Bossons calculated that ending the tax amounted to a windfall of about $12 billion ($62 billion in today's dollars) for Canada's wealthiest families.

The removal of the estate tax, which remains an obscure event in Canadian history, had momentous implications, depriving Ottawa of revenue and putting Canada on a path toward greater inequality.

Columnists

New Brunswick has a fiscal mal de ventre

We've become regrettably disconnected from one another here in the Maritime provinces. For example, in Nova Scotia the only thing we seem to know about New Brunswick these days is that prices are cheaper over the border, causing embarrassment for the Nova Scotia government.

Gas stations and other businesses are wobbling and closing in the Amherst area because people are flocking to New Brunswick to gas up and buy stuff. Business people complain, with the accusation that Nova Scotia's taxes are too high.

Columnists

Europe looks ahead

British Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has come out in favour of a global financial transactions tax. Speaking Saturday in Edinburgh (his home base) to a G20 Finance Ministers meeting on the subject of bank bailouts Brown said "it cannot be acceptable that the benefits of success in this sector are reaped by the few but the costs of its failure are borne by all of us."

 

Are average Canadians paying too much in taxes?

| April 25, 2013
Columnists

The Harper government's tough posture and weak rules on tax havens

There is something almost quaint about the little ritual we go through every year at tax time.

Ordinary citizens diligently spend hours calculating their income and deductions and meticulously filling out forms, fearful of the probing eye and relentless reach of the tax man. At the same time, some of our richest citizens quietly park billions of dollars on faraway islands where the sun delightfully reaches but the tax man delightfully doesn't.

Fiscal debate in Quebec: Myth busting and flak

| April 4, 2013
Columnists

Toronto's guerrilla campaign to restore the public realm through transit

Photo: Jeff Samsonow/Flickr

It's hard not to watch Cyprus the way you watch one of those plucky little countries that appear in the World Cup and people root for. This week they rejected the European hierarchy's latest attack on its citizens. The plan involved swiping a portion of all savings accounts there in return for another bailout that won't work. It was so blatantly unfair to ordinary folks who, as usual, weren't to blame for the mess, that even Cypriot legislators voted it down.

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