The middle class and the small businesses in Canada carry a really harsh tax burden. There is just no comparison with the kind of tax rates I, as a college professor, pay here in the US and what a person in Quebec with a similar level of income has to shell out. Of course, having access to the really excellent Canadian healthcare system for free is a great benefit that people get in return for their taxes. This is undoubtedly so, and there is nothing to argue here about.
However, if we are talking about young professionals, these are people who don’t really need (for the most part) any ultra-expensive medical services. I’ve had many conversations with younger Canadians defending the healthcare system of Canada from their criticisms. (I’m a huge, huge fan of that system, in case you don’t know). A young person who pays a humongous sum in taxes finds it difficult to be convinced that it will all make sense once he or she is 60 and in need of an expensive operation. Once again, working more and harder to bring your salary from one level to the next makes no immediate practical sense to people, since the salary increase will immediately push them into an even more highly taxed income bracket.
To give an example, my younger sister pays more in taxes per year than what I make in a year. She sees no return on those taxes because she has a private health insurance and no other welfare benefits are extended to her. She says she’d be much happier paying these taxes if she knew that they went directly to provide some professor’s salary. Sadly, this isn’t how it works.
So here you have a situation where quite a few people are discouraged from working at all. Many more realize that starting a business is too much trouble, and who needs the constant aggravation from the Ministry of Revenue? The Canadian tax people never persecute the large corporations, of course. They just choose some poor schmuck trying to run a small Mom and Pop business and squeeze him until he hands over everything he has and declares bankruptcy. They actually tell that to you face when you beg them to see reason and not fine you for an amount you simply do not possess.
Once again, please don’t dispute this point with me because I just finished talking on the phone with precisely this kind of poor Canadian schmuck who is going through this type of torture right now, and I’m understandably upset.
(To be continued. . .)
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