Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!tmsoft!mason
From: mason@tmsoft.uucp (Dave Mason)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: That F'n Fed. Sales Tax is Gonna *HURT*!!
Message-ID: <1989Aug13.161201.7535@tmsoft.uucp>
Date: 13 Aug 89 16:12:01 GMT
References: 
Reply-To: mason@tmsoft.UUCP (Dave Mason)
Followup-To: can.general
Distribution: can
Organization: TM Software Associates, Toronto
Lines: 41

In article  kim@watsup.waterloo.edu (T. Kim Nguyen) writes:
>I just heard about the federal sales tax which goes into effect
>January 1991.  9% on just about everything you can think of, and
>more...  houses, cars, guitar lessons, haircuts, books (egads,
>textbooks!?!), ... what else!??  I can't believe the gall of the govt,
>to tax someone 9% on a 6-figure price for a house!
Most of that house is currently covered by an 11% FST.  It's really
only the final assembly (Gee, sounds like Free Trade :-) that is newly
taxed.  While this is not insignificant, it is not really much of a
bump on an already overinflated house price.  Moreover, it will not
apply to resale homes, and there will be a rebate to make it ``revenue
neutral'' for reasonably priced homes.  It's really only in the
Toronto market (and possibly a few other overheated city markets)
where it will make a noticeable difference.  It will also make
building your own home more attractive.

>So much for tax avoidance and shelters.  This one there's no escape
>from.
I wish.  Unfortunately there's already a whole bunch of exceptions...
the aforementioned housing tax rebate, some food (not that I disagree
with this exception), Stock broker commissions, etc.  (see recent
Financial Post for details).

>Other tax hikes that p*** me off:  the fed. sales tax on phone bills,
>a ridiculously high 10% to start off with, now 11%.  Gasoline taxes.
>Alcohol taxes.
As these are mostly discretionary expenditures, it seems reasonable to
me that they should be taxed.  Before you say that long distance &
gasoline are not optional for some people, let me point out that the
poorer parts of our society certainly are not known for the large
amount of money they spend on these items.

>How many days does that push back Tax Freedom Day for us???
I think ``Tax Freedom Day'' is an extremely misleading way to look at
taxation and government spending.  While I would very much like to see
the deficit eliminated, and I feel that there are certainly cuts in
government payrolls that would contribute to this, I consider the
taxes I pay (appreciable) a reasonable cost when evaluating the total
``living in Canada'' package.

	../Dave