I get that paying taxes is a necessary evil, but what can be done about how governments use our money??
I’ve been to Haiti and have witnessed first hand the utter devastation that the absence of both government, and tax collecting has on a country. It isn’t pretty that’s for sure, but, even though I have seen that, I must say our Canadian government needs to hop off. I have to ask the Toronto/Ontario/Canadian government WTAF are they doing in the world??? 53.5% income tax? Property tax? HST? And my two personal favorites: Land Transfer Tax, and Inheritance Tax. Those two grind my gears way more than all the others. Because they honestly feel like blatant cash grabs, and double taxing.
What’s got today’s blog topic at the front of my mind is that I had lunch with a girlfriend yesterday and both these topics came up during our time together. My girlfriend was sharing with me how she and her hubby have recently been nailed with this massive, and I mean MASSIVE estate tax bill after her husband inherited a portion of his mother’s fortune.
Now, maybe I’m dumb, or correct me if I am wrong, but, how, and why does the government get to tax inheritances?? Didn’t the people who earned the money already pay taxes on their income? And we all know if they invested it, the capital gains on those investments were also taxed, were they not? So, if the money has already had its day in the tax sun is it really ethical for the government to tax it once again when the family inherits it??
It seems like it is double taxation at its finest; and to me it feels completely wrong, if not downright criminal. Like why is this a thing? And what can we, the people, do to stop it? Most likely nothing at all, which is infuriating, at least it is to me.
The other thing that came up was, moving houses, both she and I are feeling the itch to make a change with our primary residences. But, they have this nifty thing in Toronto where you pay a “land transfer tax” when you purchase a home. How it works, in case you’re not subject to it where you live is; you pay property tax on your home while you own it and live in it. I think most everybody has this tax law, which is like whatever, it’s not great but it’s not unusual so we suck it up and we pay it, since it is supposed to handle infrastructure and repairs to sidewalks etc etc etc. Although I find it awesome that my sidewalk has been busted up since 2012, from when we put in a new water main to build our house, and they still haven’t come round to repair it, even though we were told the outside dates were two years…it’s been FIVE. Things that make me go “GRRRR.” But I digress, the point is not my broken sidewalks and the misuse of my property taxes, the point that my girlfriend and I cannot figure out is not only do you pay property taxes when you live in the house, but you pay taxes when you sell it, and then you pay property taxes on your new home to. One would think here in Toronto we pay enough taxes having to do with our properties.
But wait, there’s more!! Somebody in government, at the Toronto level, thought it was not only a cool thing to do, but a completely fair thing to do when they introduced this thing called LAND TRANSFER TAX??? Like excuse me? I pay tax on my income, I pay tax on every single thing pertaining to my home, the maintenance, hydro, gas, etc, etc, I pay property tax on my property, I pay tax on the sale of the property and now I have this other tax, the land transfer tax which is on a sliding scale. The more expensive the property you’re buying the higher the rate? (See this hand dandy chart to figure out how much land transfer tax you would pay to buy a home in Toronto here: https://www.ratehub.ca/land-transfer-tax-toronto)
How is that even fair?? Shouldn’t it be the reverse? I mean since the purchase of a 2 million dollar house at 0.5% would be more than somebody purchasing a $55,000 property, which I can’t even believe they have that as a price option on the chart!!!?? I don’t even think you could buy a dog house on a piece of Toronto property for that kind of money, $55,000 crack smoking assholes, like come on?? Anyway, I’m so turnt up about this and so annoyed because before you even get the keys in hand you could be out of pocket $100,000 just to buy the house?! It is ludicrous to me. And why does the scale go UP the more expensive the home?? Considering a more expensive house will already yield the government more revenue even at the 0.5% taxation rate.
Honestly. I can’t even with this tax, double tax and in some case triple taxing us, and then we get to sit in bumper to bumper traffic through construction zones on streets that they’ve now ripped up for the tenth time in three years. Get it together people, I know you’ve got all our money rolling in at you from every angle, but show some respect for the hard working stiffs who are lining your government coffers, is this too much to ask???
