Taxes and Tax Freedom Day

Taxing Times
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/taxing-times
Hennessy's Index: A number is never just a number
By Trish Hennessy
May 1, 2012
Hennessy's Index is a monthly listing of numbers, written by the CCPA's Trish Hennessy, about Canada and its place in the world.

Canadians willing to pay higher taxes for equality
http://goo.gl/4cOlK
April 10, 2012
According to results of the first poll commissioned by a new left-leaning think tank, the majority of Canadians are concerned by the growing gulf between haves and have-nots, and they're willing to pay for change. The Environics Research survey commissioned by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent's eponymous institute was released Tuesday.
Source:
CTVNews.ca

Broadbent Institute
http://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/
The Broadbent Institute is an idea realized in 2011 after years of percolating in the mind of Canadian politician and advocate, Ed Broadbent. Endorsed by Jack Layton and supporters from right across Canada, the Broadbent Institute is inspired by a common vision of free, equal, and compassionate citizenship in Canada – the very heart of what social democracy is about.

Economic equality an ongoing battle for women, prof says
http://goo.gl/W5YnD

Top CEOs got 189 times the average worker's pay in 2010
http://goo.gl/az7oq

Tax Fairness Newsletter - March 2012
http://www.taxfairness.ca/newsletter/2012-03/tax-fairness-newsletter-march-2012
March 2012

In this issue:
The Fair Tax Summit
The Federal Budget: There are alternatives to cutbacks
Take Action!
Africa's Odious Debts
The macroeconomic causes of growing inequality
Poll finds 60% support raising taxes on the rich
Successful campaign to save libraries from tax cuts video
Can you guess which province has the lowest corporate taxes?
Study says Canada has one of the lowerst corporate tax rate.
Who said, "I don't believe that any taxes are good taxes"?
Inequality is bad for the economy
Doctors for Fair Taxation

Source:
Canadians for Tax Fairness
http://www.taxfairness.ca/
The mission of Canadians for Tax Fairness is to build a national campaign to promote fair taxation. We support the development and implementation of a tax system, based on ability to pay, to fund the comprehensive, high-quality network of public services and programs required to meet our social, economic and environmental needs in the 21st century.

96 more everyday reasons to feel good about taxes
- reasons like : governors-general - access to information - adoption records - critical infrastructure protection - airbag safety - fisheries - elections - pensions - money-minting - aviation museums - polar ice-watching - police college - social assistance - unemployment insurance - autopsies - ferries - bingo permits...

Canada's Quiet Bargain:
The benefits of public spending (PDF - 1.3MB, 40 pages)
April 2009
By Hugh Mackenzie and Richard Shillington
This study adds a dimension that has been missing to the public debate over taxes and public spending in Canada. It weighs the benefits of public services provided by federal, provincial, and municipal governments against the benefits of recent tax cuts.

100 things not to do if you hate taxes
or, why saying taxes are not worth what we get for them is just plain stupid (PDF - 348K, 7 pages)
http://goo.gl/SH5v6
March 2012
The so-called free market can’t and won’t take care of everything; the public sector can and must play a constructive and compassionate role in our society and economy. We’re going to keep working hard to make that truth as obvious to all Canadians as the sun rising in the east. We won’t stop until we win the battle of ideas and values when it comes to taxes. In the meantime, we offer this handy list of 100 things not to do for all those people who hate paying taxes and the public sector.
1. Do not visit your doctor’s office or local hospital.
2. Do not send your kids to public schools.
3. Do not support the Canadian Forces.
4. Do not expect the Canadian Coast Guard to save you from an emergency at sea.
5. Do not expect the government to intervene and boost the economy during a recession.
(...)
After reading this list, we hope people have a better appreciation that there is a very real connection between their taxes and the services and programs they use.

Please click the source link below and join the campaign.
There are many ways you can get involved, so join the conversation and help set the record straight.

Source:
All Together Now!
A national campaign
For Public Services and Tax Fairness
http://alltogethernow.nupge.ca/

Tax Freedom Day - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Tax Freedom Day is the first day of the year in which a nation as a whole has theoretically earned enough income to fund its annual tax burden. It is annually calculated in the United States by the Tax Foundation—a Washington, D.C.-based tax research organization. Every dollar that is officially considered income by the U.S. government is counted, and every payment to the U.S. government that is officially considered a tax is counted. Taxes at all levels of government—local, state and federal—are included."

Tax Freedom Day is nothing to celebrate [dead link]
Don't like paying for government? Just try living without it
By Craig McInnes
June 10, 2011
(...)What offends me ... and what I believe is dangerous to our way of life, is the underlying message of Tax Freedom Day, which is that the taxes we pay to support governments and the services they provide somehow work against us rather than enabling the quality of life we enjoy.
(...)
The insidious aspect of looking at taxes in the absence of the benefits they pay for is that we lose sight of why we pay taxes. After that, pressure intensifies for politicians to cut taxes to the point where the consequences are ignored. That has already happened in the U.S., where opposition to taxes is bankrupting states and undermining the value of the once mighty American dollar. There are plenty of countries in the world with lower taxes than Canada's. There are few with a higher quality of life.
Source:
Vancouver Sun

United States

The American perspective from
the New York Times:

Obama Goes on Offensive Over Taxes on Wealthy
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/us/politics/obama-to-make-case-for-buffett-rule.html
By Jackie Calmes
April 10, 2012
BOCA RATON, Fla. — All but certain now that his Republican opponent will be Mitt Romney, President Obama has made his proposed “Buffett Rule” minimum tax for the wealthiest Americans like Mr. Romney a centerpiece of his re-election campaign, defying the political risk of being seen as a tax-and-spender by wary voters. With a rousing speech on Tuesday to a receptive university audience of about 5,000 in this battleground state, Mr. Obama defined the coming contest as a clash of philosophies: His argument that tax fairness and the common good demand the richest Americans pay at least as much as middle-income taxpayers do, contrasted with Republicans’ opposition to any tax increases as job killers and class warfare, even at the cost of deep cuts in domestic programs.

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Mr. Obama and the ‘Buffett Rule’
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/opinion/mr-obama-and-the-buffett-rule.html
Editorial
April 10, 2012
President Obama accomplished two things when he made the case on Tuesday for the so-called Buffett Rule, which would require millionaires to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. He persuasively argued that it would be a step toward fairness in a tax code tilted in favor of the wealthiest Americans. Not incidentally, it allowed him to take an implicit shot at his virtually certain opponent, Mitt Romney, both personally and politically.
(...)
The Buffett Rule, which would raise an estimated $50 billion over 10 years, would not make an appreciable dent in the deficit or provide a lot more for essential programs. By comparison, letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for taxpayers making more than $250,000 a year, as the president has also called for, would raise $800 billion over 10 years. Mr. Obama must ensure that the Buffett Rule does not become a substitute for ending those tax cuts

Source:
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/

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America Celebrates Tax Freedom Day 2011
Tax Freedom Day will arrive on April 12 this year, the 102nd day of 2011. That means Americans will work well over three months of the year, from January 1 to April 12, before they have earned enough money to pay this year's tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels. Tax Freedom Day arrives three day later in 2011 than it did in 2010, but nearly two weeks earlier than in 2007. This shift toward a lower tax burden since 2007 has been driven by three factors:
• The Great Recession has reduced tax collections even faster than it has reduced income.
• President Obama and the Congress, after a long debate, extended the Bush-era tax cuts for two additional years.
• As part of the extension agreement, the Making Work Pay tax credit was replaced with the 2 percent reduction in the payroll tax.
Despite these tax reductions, Americans will pay more in taxes in 2011 than they will spend on groceries, clothing and shelter combined.

Source:
The Tax Foundation
The mission of the Tax Foundation is to educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government.

Reality check:

Tax Foundation Figures Do Not Represent Typical Households’ Tax Burdens
Figures May Mislead Policymakers, Journalists, and the Public
April 12, 2011
By Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith
[ PDF version - 5 pages ]
"Each year, the Tax Foundation releases a report projecting 'Tax Freedom Day,' which it describes as the day when Americans will have 'earned enough money to pay this year's tax obligations at the federal, state, and local levels.'

"The Tax Foundation's 'Tax Freedom Day' report is plagued by two major problems. First, its estimates of state and local tax burdens suffer from a number of serious methodological flaws. Second, over the years, many journalists and policymakers have misinterpreted the Tax Foundation's report as reflecting the tax burdens faced by typical middle-income workers.

"In fact, the Tax Foundation's calculation of the 'average' tax burden merely measures tax revenues as a share of the economy; it is similar to estimates of total revenues as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In a progressive tax system like that of the United States, only upper-income households pay tax at rates equal to or exceeding the overall level of revenues as a share of the economy. Authoritative figures from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office show that middle- and even upper-middle-income Americans pay a considerably smaller share of their income in taxes than the Tax Foundation report implies. The CBO data suggest that 80 percent of U.S. households pay federal tax at a lower rate than the Tax Foundation's estimated 'average' federal tax burden."

Source:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)

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Earlier related CBPP report:

TAX FOUNDATION FIGURES DO NOT REPRESENT TYPICAL HOUSEHOLDS’ TAX BURDENS:
Figures May Mislead Policymakers, Journalists, and the Public
April 23, 2008
By Robert Greenstein and Aviva Aron-Dine
Each year, the Tax Foundation releases a report projecting “Tax Freedom Day,” which it describes as the day when “Americans will finally have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year.” Over the years, many pundits and policymakers have misinterpreted the Tax Foundation’s report as reflecting the tax burdens that the broad swath of middle-income families must shoulder.

In fact, however, according to data from authoritative sources such as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, middle-income Americans pay significantly less in taxes as a share of their income than the Tax Foundation’s report implies.

This analysis explores significant flaws in the Tax Foundation’s report.

This piece is posted to:
http://www.cbpp.org/4-23-08tax.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/4-23-08tax.pdf (7pp.)

Source:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

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Les impôts et
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