http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/publication_details.aspx?pubID=3133

“If we told people that taxes are 30% of their total income
before tax, they would have a large task ahead of them to estimate all the types of income that must be included to arrive at this measure of income. Many people think of cash income (wages and salaries, government transfers, pension payments, interest and dividends, farm income, and self-employment income) as their total income. Most do not consider
all the other types of income they earn but do not see (including corporate retained earnings, the investment income on their pension plans, and indirect taxes) as part of their total income. For example, if we wereto report that the total tax burden for the average family was 30% most people with a family cash income of $60,000 would estimate their tax
bill at $18,000 when it is actually closer to $28,000. The crucial piece of information is that governments extracted $28,000 from your family; the particular definition of income is secondary.” (p 35-36)

The PARTICULAR DEFINITION OF INCOME IS SECONDARY?????

AKA pick whatever denominator gets us the answer we want in our press release. Because if we used “total income” and TFD landed on April 20th our press release wouldn’t get printed by any newspaper in Canada.

I recall reading an interesting criticism of Fraser’s TFD that compared TFD as calculated by the Tax Foundation in the US. If the US calculation was used by Fraser TFD would come 3-4 weeks earlier.

Also things that improve a family’s economic status but are not paid in cash are excluded from “cash income” so things like employer pension/RRSP contributions, employer paid health benefits, etc are not included. Fraser knows that if they were to use “total income” that TFD would occur in late APRIL. In fact they know this and conceal this in their press releases, but if you read their publication “Tax Facts” that details much of the calculations behind TFD they admit that

“If we told people that taxes are
31% of their total income before tax, they would
have a large task ahead of them to estimate all
the types of income that must be included to arrive
at this measure of income…Cash income is a
useful tool in describing the tax burden because
it does not force people to go through arithmetic
gymnastics to arrive at their total income before
tax to get an idea of how large the total tax burden
is.” (pp. 37-38)”

What EI benefits? Make me laugh.

from the Fraser Institute:

Q: What types of income do I include?

A: Pre-tax income from: employment (wages and salaries), farming, self-employment, interest, dividends, private pensions (a company or civil service pension for example), government pensions (CPP or QPP), old age pension (OAS and GIS), and other government transfers (welfare and EI payments for example).

Are there any Capitalists on this site at all?

We can argue whether EI is a tax or not, that was not my point. The point was that Fraser includes EI “tax” as an expense but doesn’t include the income people receive in their definition of income. When they are calculating % taxes they inflate their numbers by including EI as a “tax” in the numerator, but don’t include EI benefits in the denominator.

Not only is this downright dishonest, they do include all available social benefits when they “prove” that poor people are richer today than in years past. Hence the addition of hypocrisy to my list of criticisms.

As I understand it, China has now surpassed the USA, and the USA has not decreased since 2004, making their relative percentages more now than in 2004. So, I would think we are near 2%. Granted our per capita rate is high, but we also heat our homes much more than most countries. If we could slow our meat consumption we would get much farther ahead. If we could make people realize that in the winter you need a sweater, even inside, instead of heating to 21C we would do very well too.

The best countries by what measure? GDP per capita? Under age 5 death rates per 1000 people? Amount of people who freeze to death due to crazy winters? Though I agree, more people declare themselves happier from countries with higher taxes and more services that take care of them. You also have to have a balance between government control, public service, private enterprise, taxes, etc. I believe we are near a good balance with Canada and that’s why lots of people like to live here even though we have terrible weather.

I sure hope, for everyones sake, the studies I’ve been reading on the estimated solar output over the next 30 years are not correct, or Canada will not be doing well soon. If these studies do turn out to be fact, you may want to look at buying land in Panama.

You hear a lot about government waste and mis-management, but even if you could eliminate this, how much would it really impact our overall taxation ?

There are approximately 195 countries in the world. What maximum percentage of total emissions do you think any one country can produce ?

For the amount of money we pay, the pot holes should be filled with gold, there should be no waiting in any hospital and our military should be in much better condition.

You can be happy to pay 45% of your income in taxes, but you’re being ripped off.