The Toronto Star published an opinion piece Monday from a group of “wealth and class privileged” socialists who are unsatisfied with the amount they will be taxed after the 2024 federal budget was announced.
The collectively written article entitled, “We are rich Canadians and we support higher capital gains taxes,” starts by saying “Ottawa wants to raise taxes for Canada’s ultra rich. Rich people like us want that too.”
The authors of the piece support the recent capital gains tax hike which tech CEOs and other Canadian business leaders have opposed, but think the tax doesn’t go far enough.
“We wish Canada was taxing the rich more — we’d also like to see a “super wealth tax,” an inheritance tax, and progressive property taxes — but we support this step. Let us pay our fair share,” they wrote.
In an interview with True North, Franco Terrazzano, the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, refuted the claims made by the authors of the piece.
“These people should just send the government a check if they want to give more money to the government, rather than pushing the government to hammer Canadians with higher taxes to pay for this government’s wasteful spending,” he said.
The letter was collectively written with most authors being from the Resource Movement which describes itself as a “community of people with wealth and/or class privilege working toward the redistribution of wealth, land and power.”
The authors claim the estimated $19.3 billion in revenue from the capital gains tax hike will “help close the gap” of income inequality.
“This government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem,” Terrazzano said. “With the government spending more than $500 billion this year, the government is going to blow through this extra cash in less than a week.”
Terrazzano thinks throwing more money at the government is only going to make the rising income inequality in Canada worse.
“The government has handed out or announced billions of dollars in corporate welfare to multinational corporations,” he said. “So the government is taking money from everyday Canadians through higher taxes and giving a bunch of money to multinational corporations through corporate welfare, and to the bond fund managers on Bay Street.”
The group writes, “(The capital gains tax hike) will impact an estimated 0.1 per cent of Canadians — those who make more than $250,000 in one year from the sale of an asset.”
“(The tax) can impact the whole economy. It’s going to push away investment that will result in less jobs and that will hurt Canadians,” Terrazzano said.
The authors said those who will be affected only pay 50% on their capital gains unless the income is from stock sales or selling a second home, which they say “seems only fair” in a housing crisis where people can’t afford rent or to own their first home.
Terrazzano thinks raising the capital gains tax will just make housing more expensive.
“Housing requires massive capital investment. After this tax hike, how many people are just going to choose not to invest their capital in Canada?” he said. “(And) if you were thinking about selling your property, your land, your home or your second home, people are going to be less likely to do that now with this capital gains tax hike.”
This comes after the government raised the carbon tax by 23%, which will cost the average Canadian household hundreds of dollars more than they get back in rebate, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report.
The government also increased alcohol taxes by 4.7% and payroll taxes by up to $347 on April 1.
“All this government knows how to do is hike taxes and waste money,” Terrazzano said. “Even after this massive tax hike, Trudeau is still running a $40 billion deficit this year. And the best that Trudeau is willing to do is a pinky promise that the government will eventually bring the deficit down to $20 billion five years from now.”
True North reached out to authors but was either ignored or told they were unavailable to speak before the given deadline.
