First there was the HST
Canada - High Taxes
First there was the HST. Not much complaint there. Not even a peep at the G20 protests in Toronto. I could have sympathized with the G20 protests if there had even been a sign protesting our high taxes in Canada. There wasn’t. It might just have been Adam Nobody’s protest and no one else’s really. That could be a movie or a book. The Protest of Adam Nobody. The Song of Adam Nobody. Sounds so very existential.
Okay, so I was the only one pissed off about the new HST tax. I’m the only one miffed about the charge of one cent’s tax on a plastic bag. I understand the need to limit plastic bags in an attempt to clean up the environment. What I don’t understand is why we have to pay for a business’s bagging costs. A plastic bag does not really cost five cents now. It costs me SIX CENTS! A penny tax! Can you believe it? What beggars our greedy governments are! One Penny. I have a large jar of pennies in my closet. Does the government want that too? Probably they do, as we live in Canada, in one of the highest taxed nations of the world.
Then I read the newspapers on December 31st. “A Taxing Year Ahead: Lobby Group. “ And there it is in the fine print: We’re going to have to pay more taxes in 2011. We’ll earn less in 2011 because our government has increased personal income taxes. A family of one with an income of $45,000 will pay about $184 more in income tax, a family with an income of $100,000 will pay $437 more. If you live in Ontario, you’re going to be paying more: $380 and $1,077 more respectively.
Our employment insurance is going to cost us more and so is the Canadian Pension Plan – costing about $76 more if you earn more than $44,200. No wonder Canadians will be working long beyond the retirement age. They can’t afford not to.
There goes my pay raise for 2011. Yippie.
The good news for corporations is that they get a discount of 1.5 percent in their taxes. Happy New Year.
We were discussing this at work and the overall conclusions are that the corporations are getting another cut in tax rates so they can create jobs.
The second conclusion is that more of the economy will enter the black market – the “under the table” kind of cash economy. It’s the only way ordinary human beings in any country can fight back against high taxes. Unless you’re French, British or Greek and you then you really hit the streets in protest.
This question bailcasly is looking to see if you should itemize your deductions or take the standard deduction.When you itemize, one of the things itemized is how much in taxes you paid to the states last year. They can figure out how much you paid from your paystub. They also want to know though, if you owed any money on your 2006 tax return that you paid then, because that counts towards “income taxes paid in 2007″ for itemized deduction purposes.So what this question is asking is:- Did you owe any income tax on last years return that you paid.- Did you pay any back income taxes on last years return.- The key is that it’s *state* income taxes. They don’t care whether you owed / paid any federal income tax last year.Nothing too sinister.