{"id":519,"date":"2017-04-07T20:07:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T20:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/?p=519"},"modified":"2017-04-07T20:07:35","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T20:07:35","slug":"shadow-system-tax-breaks-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/07\/shadow-system-tax-breaks-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Shadow System\u2019 of Tax Breaks For The Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"

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December 2016 study finds: \u00a0\u2018Shadow System\u2019 of Tax Breaks For The Rich\u00a0Costs Canada Billions $$$<\/h3>\n

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Canada\u2019s income tax deductions are helping make the rich richer, a new study has concluded.<\/h4>\n

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The research paper released in December 2016 by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says breaks on personal income taxes in Canada cost almost as much as the government collects from those taxes, and they disproportionately benefit the rich.<\/h4>\n

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\u201cIn essence, there are two federal transfer systems in Canada:\u00a0 one for the poor and middle class and another shadow system for the rich,\u201d CCPA senior economist David Macdonald said in a statement.<\/h4>\n

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The \u201cone for the poor and middle class\u201d is the country\u2019s social safety net, including the Canada Pension Plan, employment Insurance, Old Age Security, the GIS, the GST credit and child tax benefits.\u00a0 That system costs Canada $113 billion in 2011.<\/h4>\n

But that year the country passed over nearly as much in revenue– $103 billion\u2014in tax breaks, most of which favour higher earners.<\/h4>\n

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The research paper calculated that, of the 64 income tax deductions available in Canada, 59 of them put more money in the pockets of the top half of earners than they do in the pockets of the bottom half, and the richest 10 per cent get \u201cthe largest share,\u201d the report said.<\/h4>\n

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Only five deductions give lower earners more money than higher earners, and only one\u2014the Working Income Tax Benefit\u2014\u201cexclusively\u201d helps the working poor, the report said.<\/h4>\n

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In 2011, 39 per cent of the money that the government returned in deductions went to the richest one-tenth of earners, while the poorest one-tenth got 16 per cent of the money, the report found.<\/h4>\n

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\u201cThe five worst tax loopholes all provide 99 percent or more of their benefit to the richest half of Canadians and cost the government $10.4 billion in 2011,\u201d MacDonald said.<\/h4>\n

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\u201cIf those loopholes were closed, the government could use that money to eliminate university tuition and create an affordable national child care program.\u201d<\/h4>\n

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The CCPA study recommends that the government end the \u201cmost regressive\u201d deductions, meaning those that benefit the wealthy the most.\u00a0 But it says the government should do so slowly, reducing the tax breaks by almost 5 per cent per year, adding some $5.1 billion in revenue annually.<\/h4>\n

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It also says the government should start treating tax breaks like expenses, and report them as a cost in the annual budget and fiscal updates.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"December 2016 study finds: \u00a0\u2018Shadow System\u2019 of Tax Breaks For The Rich\u00a0Costs Canada Billions $$$   Canada\u2019s income tax deductions are helping make the rich richer, a new study has concluded.   The research paper released in December 2016 by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says breaks on personal income taxes in Canada…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43],"tags":[69,49,33],"class_list":["entry","author-larrynorton","post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-bc-politics","tag-democracy","tag-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nortonspeaks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/cash.jpg?fit=620%2C349","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8bppg-8n","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}