Tax Freedom Day reminds us of our tax burden

Most of our income goes to support three levels of government

Halalulia!

This year Tax Freedom Day arrived on May 24 and barely anyone noticed. The significance of that day is: if you had to pay your taxes up front before you could spend money on anything else, every dollar you earned from Jan. 1 to May 24 would go just to pay your taxes.

Most Canadians are not aware of the many taxes they pay. And our governments like to keep us somewhat bewildered about that, usually to their advantage.

Governments enjoy an inexhaustible supply of our money in the name of public policy. Tax increases usually happen below public view and almost always invisibly.

‘PARTY DISCIPLINE’

Ask your MP or MLA when he or she last voted on a tax measure. Did that measure increase our taxes and by how much? Don't expect clarification because “party discipline” requires members on the government side to vote uncritically with the government.

So tax measures get passed without much scrutiny by government members. Most tax bills are not even read, except by members of cabinet. We pay the price of party discipline and the power of the government House Leader to herd members, especially on legislative matters like tax bills.

After Russia, we are the largest federal state in the world with numerous governments: 10 provinces, three territories and over 6,000 municipal governments — all requiring billions of dollars in tax supports.

TAXES EVERYWHERE

The range of taxes we pay is phenomenal: there are sales taxes, the GST, corporate taxes, excise taxes, municipal taxes and residential, as well as property taxes and hidden taxes on alcohol, gasoline and tobacco.

Very few of us can tell how much of our taxes go to any particular policy we have, such as health care, education or comparable municipal services. How much does it cost us to repair provincial roads, or the streets in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality?

For Canadians, most of our income goes to support the three levels of government. Families pay more taxes than what they spend on life's "necessities" — such as food, clothing and shelter. It begs the question: are we here for the benefit government or for the benefit of our families?

‘STAGGERING’ INCREASES

Few of us are aware that our tax bill has grown more rapidly than any other major item in an average family's annual budget for over 50 years. According to the Fraser Institute, a family's tax bill has increased by a staggering 1,838 per cent. In the same period the cost of clothing increased by 520 per cent, the cost of food by 538 per cent and the cost of shelter by 1,348 per cent.

Canada is in the upper middle range of taxation among Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states. And, when it comes to the burden of taxation, Canada, at 44 per cent of its GDP, is one of the highest taxed among the other developed countries of the world. This is higher, for example, than Austria, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Given our enormous size and the complexity of our parliamentary system we are likely to retain the bulk of our tax burden indefinitely.