It’s no wonder taxpayers have so much mistrust in government.
While working class families struggle to pay their taxes every spring, Canada’s tax agency is having trouble collecting billions of dollars from debtors. The money owed to the federal government stands at nearly $30 billion. That’s an increase of nearly 60 per cent from 2005-06 when there were $18 billion in unpaid taxes, according to the auditor general.
Doesn’t that make you feel all rosy inside? Yes, rosy with anger.
When the working class sees other people getting away with not paying their taxes, where’s the incentive to comply? For some, it’s a real hardship to come up with that extra money to give to the government every year. It doesn’t help when they see rich individuals and large corporations deferring their taxes or paying very little (or nothing) because of loopholes or smart accountants.
Us lowly peasants seem to be easy targets for the tax man. He warns us that we’ll pay hefty fines or go to jail if we don’t pay our taxes. He knows where we live, and he knows we are easily intimidated. Yet he allows billions of dollars to go unpaid from slippery debtors that have good lawyers and are hard to track down.
The government doesn’t seem to grasp the simple fact that if it stops nickel-and-diming people to death, taxpayers wouldn’t try to cheat the system as much as they do.
Why should big corporations get hefty tax breaks? Why should wealthy Canadians be allowed to skirt the law when it comes to paying their fair share? It’s wrong and it must stop.
The gap between the rich and the poor is continuing to widen. Poverty is widespread in Canada, but it doesn’t have to be; it shouldn’t be.
The millions of dollars that the government wastes every year on studies, golden handshakes and the Senate could easily provide affordable housing for struggling families.
Imagine what could be done with the billions in unpaid taxes that miraculously fall through the cracks? But even if the government did manage to recover that revenue, it wouldn’t go to help the poor, it would find its way back into some rich guys’s pocket. Call us pessimistic, but that’s the truth.
There needs to be a major shift in attitude in this country if we are to see any sense of fairness in the system. No more loopholes and no more get-out- of-jail free cards. This is the Game of Life, not Monopoly.
