This Black History Month, it’s important to recognize that economic injustice—both in Canada and around the world—is deeply rooted in racism. The property system in Canada was founded on the forced displacement and exclusion of Indigenous peoples from their land and immigration policies that prevented non-white immigration, effectively barring many thousands of people from accessing property in Canada. These racialized colonial systems laid the foundation for the current racial wealth gap, where racialized Canadians have about half as much wealth as their non-racialized counterparts.
Unlike the United States, where constitutional barriers have historically shielded the ultra-rich from direct taxation, Canada faces no such constitutional legal obstacles—only political ones. And those political excuses are running out.
A wealth tax enjoys overwhelming public support. Nearly 90 percent of Canadians back it, yet successive Liberal and Conservative governments have refused to act. Their refusal isn’t due to legal constraints but to the immense influence of corporate lobbyists and billionaire donors who oppose any effort to make them pay their fair share.
Just last year, powerful corporate interests mobilized to kill a progressive tax measure that would have primarily targeted Canada’s wealthiest citizens and corporations: the partial closure of the capital gains loophole.
I agree but I think that that actually enforcing it will be even harder than enforcing the existing income and capital gains taxes. We should still try, but we should spread our net wider.
And stop allowing corporate monopolies, bigger companies buying smaller ones has never made it cheaper for Canadians.
What sort of numbers are people expecting for this? I read somewhere that the NDP proposed a tax of 1-2% on assets above $10M, does that sound right?
I was curious about specifics but couldn’t find any in the article.
Both leading Canadian parties are not going to allow it, they are still both economically conservative. The last 14 years of Liberal Party rule allowed for housing crisis to spiral out of control because both wealthy liberals and conservatives benefit from it. So, why would they even allow to tax the wealthy more? Canadians have the same duopoly problem as the US, as well as having the same oligarchy problem.
The most promising counters to big money:
- Canadians for Tax Fairness
- Council of Canadians
- Democracy Watch
- PressProgress
- Protecting Canada
- Fair Vote Canada
- Bluesky Starter Pack: Ontario journalists that cover work & wage issues.
And come join us over at [email protected]
Edit: bigger list here.
Thank you for the great links! I will be bookmarking those!
Having only subscribed to 2 of the above, I appreciate this list.
“If you tax me, I’ll have less to bribe you with.”
Politicians don’t bite the hand that feeds them. We need more tax brackets at the upper levels; our highest one is $246,752 and over, which only faces a 33% progressive tax rate.
There are so many people in Canada that make way more than this who just aren’t paying their fair share. We should also be doing more to tax assets other than income.
There are so many people in Canada that make way more than this who just aren’t paying their fair share. We should also be doing more to tax assets other than income.
People who take a salary – even a high salary, are most paying their fair share. I think they could make a reasonable argument that they pay way more than most (above 246752, 33% which is more than most people in the country).
Compare that with the wealthy:
From here
CEO Tobias Lütke (who was paid a $1 salary but received more than $26 million in option-based awards).
1$, meaning he pays ZERO income tax (he likely pays some taxes on his options).
This is somewhat common for wealthy people, adding more brackets on income isn’t going get them paying their fair share.
What I believe we non wealthy people want to see is a wealth tax.
You’re mad about the wrong thing. He’s going to pay an effective tax rate of about 25% when he exercises those options. (Capital gains)
Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Assuming he pays 25% tax, which i’d be very suspicious about, he’s about 2 million short of his current “fair share”.
26 000 000 * 0.25 = 6 500 000
26 000 000 * 0.33 = 8 580 000
If he’s deferring till retirement, then likely his tax rate is less, and the bank is lending him money which he can spend freely and call a capital loss lowering his effective tax rate when he does incur those taxes.
The thing about being this wealthy is you can afford to pay people to find ways to lower this rate.
I don’t think i’m “mad” about this, but concerned. This kind of inequality leads to violent upheaval, and is currently the cause of a whole pile of unnecessary suffering. If we didn’t have people that were this wealthy and some of that money was distributed to say education, healthcare, UBI, we could all have a much healthier pleasant life.
Totally fair. One thing that’s super clear in this country is that the tax laws favour the rich. IMHO even RRSPs are of greater benefit to people who don’t pay rent or have paid off their mortgages.
A wealth tax would be great. I was surprised at how effectively rich assholes shut down the tiny fixes to the capital gains loophole. Expect a flight.
If rich people can avoid paying taxes through the use of loopholes (see the Canadian list in the Panama Papers) I don’t understand why gov’ts would worry about them leaving. I mean they’re not paying their fair share anyway, so fuck 'em.
They aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. The wealthy pay politicians both monetary and non-monetary bribes a significantly smaller sum than the taxes they avoid. If the bribes were more than the taxes they would just pay the taxes.
Gary Stevenson explained it, so long as inequality grows, the rest of us will be struggling more and more.
Why start a pitch for wealth equality by talking about racism? Pragmatically, it seems like a good way to double the number of reasons for people to disagree with you. Which issue are you trying to combat?
And while I do not debate the historical backdrop of your thesis, is racism really an explanation for wealth concentration at the top of our society today?
For starters, the richest person in Canada by far is Asian, as are many other Canadian billionaires. Racism does not explain who is or is not on the list of tech or pharma titans. Not everybody is named Thomson.
Is the problem you are trying to solve that most indigenous Canadians are less well off than a typical Canadian of European descent? Or that both groups find themselves close together at the bottom of the graph—far below the one percent?
Anyway, I am not trying to dissuade you from fighting racism. Please do. My question is simply if you feel that combining the two issues is the best way to make progress on either one of them.
It’s right there in the first four words:
This Black History Month,
News sites typically try to associate stories with current events. Black History Month is scheduled, so it’s really easy to commission or pitch something like this.
I agree with your point, but it has more to do with how news organizations expect their readers to act than anything else.
It doesn’t seem like the article ever explains what a wealth tax is?
It’s a tax on assets and net worth.
Typically taxes are on income, but the stupidly wealthy pay accountants to do weird financial tricks so it looks like they don’t have income, even though they have incredible lifestyles and wield outsized influence thanks to their money. A wealth tax theoretically sidesteps that crap.
(not op) I’m against a wealth tax, but what you mentioned is a serious problem that does need to be fixed.
The best I’ve come up with is taxing use of collatorlized assets. Are you a founder in a company that went public and you have a lot of money in stock? Great, well done! Oh, you want to buy a house without selling any of that stock and take out a loan against that stock, that you don’t pay back for decades or until you die by simply adding more collateral? Tax that. Don’t let them use it indirectly without taxing it. If they repay the collateralized loan, let them get a refund and tax however that gets paid back. They have the money to make sure all the paper work is handled correctly.
I’m sure there’s other tricks that would need to be addressed, but it should be doable without a blanket tax on unrealized gains.
Edit: also let the tax agencies investigate the lavish lifestyles and have them show how they are paying for things, and when it ultimately comes to this or other ways, tax that. Short of offsetting their yearly spend with donations to charity, tax it. Don’t let this $0 income/capital gains shit continue through trickery.
I’m not sure how effective it is, but it seems like CRA has been tightening up on some kinds of business expenses, or at least my previous employer interpreted it that way. When people have things like company vehicles or phones, or get comparable benefits from work the value of those things being used for non-work related purposes is taxable. That’s also why there’s standards for things like mileage or per-diems so people can be compensated for realistic expenses, but not use it as a way to avoid income taxes.
We should also be careful about how we close some “loopholes”. Like it makes sense that a person can mortgage their personal property and use that to fund their business. It also makes sense that they can claim the interest on that mortgage as a tax deduction since it’s kind of a business related expense. It feels different when someone with a net worth less than a million does that compared to someone worth more than a billion, so I don’t think it’s closing the loophole altogether but putting limits like only claiming interest on something like $300k of debt (or something close to the average amount owed on a home of an average valuation).
I’ll also add that the idea behind reduced taxation on capital gains is it encourages people to invest in businesses and grow the economy. That makes sense economically. Canada also does better than some places(USA) in this way because capital gains are considered realized and paid on death so there’s not really a way to avoid them altogether, at best you’re putting it off for 60ish years. We also have things like the TFSA, which allows us to invest without being subject to capital gains tax. A person able to max out their RRSP/TFSA/CPP contributions would have a very comfortable retirement, while people earning significantly more have more limited options in deferring/eliminating their tax burden.
This is one of those problems where I don’t really care about the exact nature of the solution, just that it’s addressed. Individuals hoarding wealth and power to the detriment of society is bullshit.
We can point people to Gary Stevenson for down-to-earth explanations on how this should work. He’s been campaigning for wealth taxes in the UK, but also acknowledges the issue is global. He has a playlist you can point people to that want to understand the issues better. Long story short though, he emphasizes taxing difficult-to-move physical assets like commercial properties.
Recently, clips have circulated where he debated Piers Morgan and Dave Rubin at the same time on why excess wealth must be taxed. That said, I think he explains things just as well and in better detail on his own channel.
A tax on wealth only with zero loopholes to avoid it.
It needs to cover capital gains because of how many measure their wealth by unrealized stock gains.
Also estate tax loopholes need closing so generational inequality doesn’t worsen
Ok. But poor people never have capital gains or pay estate taxes.
I simplified my explanation by putting it in easy-to-understand terms.
You can’t make yourself taller by cutting off other people’s legs.
Hey take a load of this guy who doesn’t understand what money is.
he pontificated to the peasantry living in the damp muck of the quarry, his tongue black of polish, defending his masters atop the stone tower whose top could not be seen. He himself did not live in the tower, but had a horse upon which he sat, which granted his wisdom authority over the common rabble.
I know you think this sounds smart but…
I don’t think a wealth tax is smart. I think the current slate of billionaires that are aligned with fascism should be rounded up and executed. But I am pretty sure every economist agrees that a wealth tax doesn’t make any sense mathematically. People have a bunch of stock either because of founding companies or investing early, and then the public gets to buy the stock, if the public thinks a company is valuable the stock rises and people become wealthy. It doesn’t mean that they actually have that much money that they can deploy. I think it makes more sense to have rules that prevent people using their stock as collateral for loans.
Your parents witnessed the fall of communism. We are here to witness the fall of capitalism. Your stocks will be worthless. Don’t worry about taxes.
??? wont the taxes also be worthless then? Do you think I am against taxes or something?
But I am pretty sure every economist agrees that a wealth tax doesn’t make any sense mathematically
I find it difficult to believe you could come to this conclusion in good faith, given how many serious economists advocate for wealth tax.
This economist wrote an award winning book on the topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century, where he advocates for a wealth tax.
If you think it’s “bad faith” to be against a wealth tax, then I know for a fact you have not looked into any debate about the topic, because there absolutely no consensus. Maybe you have a book that argues in favor of a wealth tax and that’s fine, I am open to arguments in favor of it. But saying I’m bad faith, when I suggested an alternative, is fucking removed.
Your supposition that “every economist agrees that a wealth tax doesn’t make any sense mathematically”, I find in bad faith, not that you are against it. It’s obvious that you are against it.
Maybe you have a book that argues in favor of a wealth tax
I don’t see how you could talk about economics and not know about that book.
ok good 1 chief
lol you’ve clearly been bested here. take the L and rephrase your claims to be less provably false next time.
Yes totally I have been bested I admit it. There is no contention around a wealth tax. Economists generally agree its a good idea and will be a successful policy.
