By Barry Stagg
April 1994
TAX TIME
How do you feel about your sweaty tax dollars going to pay for your cigarette smuggling neighbour's medical bill? Disgust and fury are two emotions that come to mind when that situation arises. Taxes are the way that the community pools together its money to pay for common services. We have long ago accepted that health care, police and fire protection are services that we all should have available and that we all should help pay for out of the general revenue of the country. In this day and age there are many who are avoiding any and all responsibility for paying for any of these services. Irresponsibility and a feeling that the country owes a person everything and the person owes the country nothing are sentiments that are leading us to social conflict.
These absurdities when looked at in general terms sometimes just look as if they are examples of the usual unfairness that goes with paying taxes. Many will say that this type of gripe is typical of those who pay a lot of taxes and feel that others are taking advantage of their high tax paying status. However, in Canada in the 1990's the middle class are paying higher taxes than anyone else and all others in the system are taking advantage of them.
When small business people are taxed to the point of bankruptcy, it is because the tax structure is such that ready and immobile targets like the small business person are hit upon to pay higher and higher taxes when the government is unable to enforce its tax collection against criminals masquerading as tax revolutionists. When lowered cigarette taxes in Ontario and Quebec reduced the amount available to pay for health services it meant that honest tax payers were forced to dig deeper to pay for services. In effect, a criminal smuggling cigarettes from the United States through a Canadian Indian reserve gains the ability to spend all of the money collected from sales while also retaining the right to claim poverty due to lack of legally declared income. Whether poverty stricken or not, the smuggler has the same right to health care and other government services as the person who struggles to satisfy the government tax collectors who bray like hungry donkeys demanding that last copper from the savaged business account.
This ridiculous situation is simply preaching to the public that crime pays and it pays big time for the most brazen and successful smugglers. How else to explain the situation where cigarette merchants carry on their business on Canadian soil without paying any Canadian taxes. Smirking merchants who have no allegiance other than to the $100.00 bills in their pockets can comfortably avoid taxes and comfortably avoid any responsibility for payment for any of the public services that they and other Canadian citizens use regularly.
Is this to be our lot in life: to pay taxes miserably and disastrously until every legitimate small business is forced into bankruptcy or into the shadowy world of tax avoidance and tax evasion. There is a moral gap in Canada where government is falling down in any attempt to enforce the laws of the country on a clear and impartial basis. The rule of law is that no man is above the law and that the rule of law applies to every man from the king and queen on down to the man sleeping on the warm air grate at Queen Street and University Avenue in Toronto. This basic rule of civilization is not being followed in this country. There are too few tax payers and too many people who take far more out of the system then they put in. Respect for the laws of the land must be earned by those enforcing the laws. No system of laws can be respected and honoured if those enforcing the rules are selective and cowardly in the process of enforcement.
One of the clarion calls of the American Revolution was "no taxation without representation". The Canadian middle class tax payer may indeed be without representation in today's government. The end result of this is a revolt that may or may not be confined to taxation. We all know how far the American Revolution managed to reach. Where is the Tea Party?