Nothing for seniors in throne speech

The Gazette

Saturday, November 22, 2008

A chilling document utterly lacking in compassion, the throne speech might well have been written by another prime minister from Calgary, a lawyer, R.B. Bennett. This one was written by an economist from Calgary, Stephen Harper.

Millions or billions hinted for the auto industry but not a smidgen of help or rescue for Canada's pensioners who are forced to sell their savings in a plunging market (the subject of at least two excellent articles in The Gazette's Business pages last week).

John Diefenbaker ended 22 years of Liberal rule in this country in 1957 when he branded the Liberals "the six-buck boys" after they raised pensions by that amount over five years.

His spirit is dead in the Tory party of today.

Edward W. Barrett

Montreal

Related:
Seniors caught in the RRIF trap deserve a break from Ottawa

Harper Valdez...Strengthening Canada's Social Security for Pensioners and Seniors?

CLICK FOR FULL SIZE IMAGE

Related:
On the good ship Harper Valdez
Treating the symptoms. Two Jims in a Jam!
Conservatives signal foreign takeovers OK until next year

CRA Form T1032 codifies Harper's two tiered pension system

Lest you think terms "tax fairness" or "leveling the playing field" are lofty concepts that Stephen Harper actually believes in, as opposed to arbitrary and whimsical concepts that he trots out when it serves his purposes, you need to take a look at the CRA Form 1032 issued in October 2007 on the matter of income splitting for seniors. Here are the words on Form T1032 (see attached) that exclude the 75% of Canadians who do not have pensions, unlike MPs, Senators and Civil Servants:

"Exclude from the amount at line A of this form any RRIF, RRSP or other annuity payments received by your spouse or common-law partner (other than amounts received due to the death of his or her spouse or common-law partner). (1) "

Form 1032 is the form used for the 14% of Seniors who will benefit from income splitting.

Income splitting has a cash value of up to $12,000 per year in tax savings. There are however, two prerequisites to enjoy this massive tax benefit. You have to have a spouse or common law partner, and you need to have pension income. This automatically excludes 75% of Canadians. RRSP and RRIF income is explicitly excluded.

How can this measure possibly be contained in a piece of legislation entitled The Tax Fairness Plan?

This income splitting measure was held by the CONservatives to have been a form of mitigation to the income trust tax. How completely absurd, since the income trust tax is specifically targeted at the 75% of Canadians who don't have pensions, whereas the PREREQUISITE for income splitting is that an individual have pension income. RRSP/RRIF income is explicitly excluded.

This is just another example of how Stephen Harper is creating a two tiered pensions system in Canada. These are four main measures to bring Harper's grossly discriminatory two tiered pension system into effect:

(1) Income splitting only applies to 25% of Canadians with pension income (only half of whom have an eligible spouse), excludes the 75% without pension income. Measure benefits all MPs, Senators and Civil Servants.

(2) Pension plans can own income trusts in private form, free of the 31.5% income trust tax. RRSPs are double taxed.

(3) Pension plans are free of growth restrictions.

(4) Alleged tax leakage, is permissible if incomes trust are held by a pension plan.

The pension plans are laughing all the way to the bank. No doubt they were consulted on this beforehand by the Harper government. Otherwise, how could pension plans like Teachers have come out with statements like this on November 1, 2006:

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Teachers' response to new federal income trust policy
November 1, 2006

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has advocated for a taxation policy on income trusts that does not discriminate against pension funds, and we are pleased to see that this is the case with the government’s announcement yesterday (October 31, 2006).

The reality is that, in a protracted period of low interest rates, it is important to find alternate investments with yields that help make up the difference. Income trusts have allowed us to do that in recent years. The challenge will be to find the investment vehicles that will replace the income and cash flow that income trusts have represented to us, but we are confident that our investment team will find them. The four-year implementation period for this new policy will enable us to gradually make any necessary adjustments to our portfolio.

There is good news for pensioners and other seniors over age 65 in this new policy, which will help take the sting out of the new tax policy on income trusts for them: the age exemption tax credit will be increased by $1,000 and income splitting will be permitted.

Contact:

Deborah Allan
Director, Communications and Media Relations
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan
(416) 730-5347
deborah_allan@otpp.com

One year after Stephen Harper's Income Trust Betrayal: The Top Ten questions still unanswered.

OTTAWA, Oct. 31 /CNW/ - Stephen Harper broke his election promise to never raid seniors' nest eggs through taxing income trusts, by doing that very thing on Halloween 2006. 365 days later, the following questions for Stephen Harper remain unanswered:

(1) Where is your government's proof of alleged tax leakage? 18 pages of blacked-out documents are all that you have provided to back up this claim.

(2) Why were the taxes paid by 38% of all outstanding income trusts held in RRSPs and pension accounts not included when evaluating possible tax losses to the government?

(3) Where is the promised transparency and accountability? Such a sweeping change in tax law should at the very least have involved public consultation.

(4) Why did the Department of Finance demand the return of the 18 pages of blacked out documents issued under the Access to Information Act?

(5) How could the proposed conversions of BCE and Telus into income trusts have had any effect on tax revenue when neither were paying taxes as corporations and were not expected to for several years?

(6) What policy advantage is there, now that BCE has been taken private through a highly debt levered buyout, and which has caused a loss of the $793 million more PER YEAR that BCE would have paid as an income trust?

(7) How is the stated objective of tax fairness and leveling the playing field achieved when government sponsored pension plans are allowed to own trusts, free of tax in their private equity portfolios, while 70% of individual Canadians are not? Why are government sponsored pension funds exempted both from the punitive 31.5% tax and growth restrictions of this policy? Furthermore, why does income splitting for seniors only benefit the 30% of Canadians with pensions, and not the 70% without? Why is this government deliberately creating a two-tiered pension system in Canada? Is this the government's response to the retirement time bomb of an aging population?

(8) Why was the 15% withholding tax paid by foreigners on interest on leveraged buyout loans reduced to zero as part of this same tax policy, at a cost to Canadians of $300 million a year? This special foreign tax loophole makes Canadian public companies more susceptible to leveraged buyout foreign takeovers, at the same time as the trust tax causes them to become grossly undervalued, because of the discriminatory nature of the tax, which only applies to Canadians and not pension funds or foreigners. As such the government has, in effect, introduced tax subsidies to encourage foreign takeovers. Why?

(9) What effect will the loss of $2 billion in annual tax revenues arising from the $65 trust takeovers to date (including BCE) have on the average Canadian taxpayer or Canada's social program spending? Will individual taxpayers be the ones to make up the shortfall? Once the entire sector is taken over by foreign private equity and government sponsored pension plans, the loss in annual tax revenues will rise to $7.5 billion, the equivalent of a 1.5% GST increase. What plans are in place to address this inevitable shortfall in light of all the other tax reductions contained in yesterday's fiscal update amounting to $60 billion. At what point will the cupboard be bare?

(10) Stephen Harper wrote the following in the National Post on October 26, 2005. "Income trusts are popular with seniors because they provide regular payments that are used by many to cover the costs of groceries, heating bills and medicine." If so, then why did he so abruptly and without notice or public consultation reverse his promise, leaving investors and seniors with losses of $35 Billion and their incomes reduced by 31.5% and in some cases 50%? How is this socially just or fair?

(11) Meanwhile, why is Jack Layton and the NDP supporting this policy when they profess to be against wholesale foreign takeovers of Canadian businesses and supposedly in favour of protecting seniors' dignity and seniors' retirement savings? Where is Jack Layton's and the NDP's proof of tax leakage? Is the NDP in possession of confidential insider information that would underlie the basis for the following claims contained in correspondence from NDP MPs to their many concerned constituents:

"I have spoken with the NDP party's Finance Critic, Judy Wasylycia-Leis, and she assures me that the government's estimates of future tax revenue losses, are solid."
Jack Layton

What is the basis for these assurances from Judy Wasylycia-Leis? Canadians are demanding of answers from both the Leader of the NDP and the Prime Minister of Canada on this cornerstone assumption.

Conclusion:

Taken as a whole, this is a travesty of democracy, starting with the breaking of a promise, the false premise for breaking the promise, the complete absence of consultation and the litany of adverse policy repercussions as the aftermath of a policy borne out of zero accountability and a complete lack of government transparency. All Canadians are adversely affected. Narrow special interests have successfully manipulated Canada's New Government for their selfish ends.

Alleged tax leakage is the cornerstone assumption behind this tax policy. It constitutes two of the five provisions of the Ways and Means Motion. The other three provisions of the Ways and Means Motion are verifiable constructs as well. Meanwhile transparency and accountability are the cornerstones of a democracy. The real danger to Canadians is that the Conservative Government is flagrantly undermining our democratic institution known as Parliament, if major tax laws are being enacted and passed on the basis of their foundations being assumed to be true, when in fact no proof whatsoever has been provided by the Government.

Dangerous Precedent:

This is an extremely dangerous precedent to have established, since it gives extraordinary powers to the Government to pass important legislation by invoking fact based arguments, that are devoid of fact based evidence. If this is allowed to occur under circumstances like these, then the risk for future abuse of our Parliamentary democracy under matters that are not verifiable in nature, is limitless.

Public Inquiry:

Stephen Harper together with Jack Layton, and the members of their respective parties are acting in concert to abrogate Canadians' democratic institution known as Parliament. As such, we are calling for a Public Inquiry, to fully examine the matter of alleged tax leakage, particularly in light of the Government's announced reduction in corporate tax rates by a staggering 32% from 22% to 15% in 2012. If the original policy intent on income trusts was to "level the playing field" with corporations, then this changed tax regime for corporations announced by the government yesterday, demands a re-examination of the extent to which these most recent measures will have tilted the playing field in favour of corporations and to the detriment of income trusts.

Furthermore, all Canadians need to establish whether Professor Jack Mintz was correct when he stated:

"I do want to point out that there is a serious flaw in some analyses especially on the taxation of pension and RRSP accounts. Finance was not right to treat the impact as zero".
Jack Mintz

This level of uncertainty over the central premise of tax leakage is significant and fails to meet the standards of the Auditor General, who states:

"Parliamentarians need objective fact based information on how well the government raises its funds (taxes)".

Until this standard is met, Canadians will never know whether the following policy measure of this new tax is fact or merely political deceit:

"strengthening Canada's social security system for pensioners and seniors" (Ways and Means Motion)"

Brent Fullard
President & CEO
Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors
www.caiti.info

For further information please contact the:
Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors
media@caiti.info or by calling (647) 505-2224

Source: CNW

Income Trust Investors still angry at Harper Government decision

"These guys open their mouths and you know they are lying"
David Marshall, October 27 2007



Related:
Finance Committee Report on Income Trusts

Dr. Michael Popovich - Tax fairness plan masks Harper's broken vow

Letters to the Editor
London Free Press
October 27, 2007

The first anniversary of the Oct. 31 implementation of the tax fairness plan is almost upon us.

Will we ever forget Stephen Harper's promise just prior to the last election: "Don't forget , the Liberals were going to tax income trusts. Don't forget we will never let that happen. We will never raid seniors' hard-earned money."

However, Harper did tax income trusts within nine months of taking power and thousands of small investors, mainly seniors, had to suffer the consequences of a $35-billion loss to their savings. The only beneficiaries were corporations like Manulife that had competing products to sell. Private equity firms and pension funds were allowed to buy up these same trusts and hold them tax-free.

Despite running on a platform of accountability, there have been no attempts made to show any verifiable justification for this action -- unless 18 blacked-out pages count.

Seniors and small investors across Canada, whose only fault was to try to make ends meet, were the collateral damage in this plan to satisfy the needs of the ultra-rich.

As the next election approaches and you hear Stephen Harper chant, "Promise made, promise kept," you might want to reassess his abysmal record on promises.

Dr. Michael Popovich
Rodney, Ontario

Source: London Free Press

Related:
Stephen Harper on Income Trusts - Election 2006
Stephen Harper on Accountability - Election 2006

Harper's policy of raiding seniors' nest eggs

CLICK FOR FULL SIZE IMAGE

One-third of Canadians over 60 worry they'll outlive their savings, assets: poll

Published: Sunday, July 15, 2007 | 1:20 PM ET

Canadian Press: GREGORY BONNELL

TORONTO (CP) - One-third of Canada's senior and near-senior citizens are worried they'll outlive their bank accounts, and half of those over 60 holding jobs say they're working because they need the money, a new poll suggests as a record number of Canadians face the so-called golden years. More...

Garth Turner speaks on Income Trusts in the House of Commons - May 17/07

Garth Turner, MP for Halton, Ontario had the following introduction for this May 17 MPTv video:

Guzzler - Yesterday I was able to speak in the House about the unfairness of the Conservative Tax Fairness Plan - yes, the one that exludes 70% of seniors from income-splitting, taxes the bejesus out of income trust investors, and raises the basic tax rate for every single senior.

For some reason, the Tories go nuts when I rise in the Commons, heckling and shouting and trying to disrupt things. This time it was Dean del Mastro's turn, who took so great an exception to my statement that the actions of politicians have so turned people off it's no wonder we enjoy the same status as used car salesmen.

A member of the Finance Committee, and a full-time apologist for Jim Flaherty, Mr. del Mastro raised a point of order with the Speaker, which he ignored. However, Dean managed to get it on the public record that I had defamed car salesguys. Odd, I thought. But then I saw his car.

Turns out my colleague is a used car salesguy in Peterborough, Ontario. His taste in transportation may explain his progressive approach to the nation's finances. View this video of my short (my time was cut short by a special ministerial accountability session) but sweet speech.

Related:

Guzzler - weblog.garth.ca