Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Taxing polls

QMI Media recently ran an article about a poll it commissioned which showed Canadians not only opposed the federal government's proposed corporate tax cut, but that they actually wanted to hit corporations with higher taxes.

Here's my response in a letter to the editor, which ran in today's paper:

Dear Sir/Madam:

Re “Poll: Tax breaks for rich tough sell” (Jan. 31): The news that a large number Canadians would support hiking corporate taxes is hardly surprising.

When given an option, people will always favour “somebody else” paying more in taxes. In fact, I suspect polls would also show Canadians would like “somebody else” to do a lot of things.

 “Somebody else” should do more to protect the environment; “somebody else” should bear the brunt of any government spending cuts; “somebody else” should pay for social programs.

 It’s just human nature.

That’s why a better poll question would be, “Would you support corporate tax cuts if they created more jobs and a more competitive Canadian economy?”

Maybe you could get such a poll paid for by “somebody else.”

8 comments:

Hugh MacIntyre said...

When I saw that poll my eyes rolled so hard that my reading glasses broke.

ladee_J said...

Perfect!!!

AEK said...

You're right.

Also, we have been taught by the MSM and left-wing politicians that corporations are evil money-grubbers.

Unless, of course, if they're in our RRSPs, in which case we demand high returns on our investments. shhhhhh!!!

Anonymous said...

Good stuff. I'm sick of hearing from the opposition and even from right-wing talk show hosts that banks and oil companies (I have no connection to either) are GOUGING us. Those corporations employ people, individuals who need a job to feed their families.

Then there's the columnists who sneer at the Conservatives for branding the corporate tax cuts as cuts for "job creators." Of course TorStar and GlobeMedia are NOT corporations, right? They're non-profits doing altruistic work, eh?

-- Gabby in QC

Libertarian CFO said...

Corporations don't PAY taxes, they COLLECT them - from customers for the government! Taxes are a cost for a company, like labour and raw materials. They are part of the selling price. Higher taxes mean higher prices, which may mean fewer sales and fewer jobs if the company has to compete with imports that have lower taxes and other costs.

Anonymous said...

Come join me in Toronto, where Mayor David Miller has DOUBLED property taxes from 2005 to 2010.

The lefts spending is out of control - time to sweep each and every one of them out of office.

Anonymous said...

You should write more letters Gerry.. good work indeed! (real conservative)

Doug said...

Well, they do pay tax - profit taxes - not just collect them from people. Also, Canadians have voted against passing costs off before - they voted for massive deficit cuts (and a deficit is passing taxes to the next generation - which sometimes makes sense if the next generation benefits but not at the rate we were going).

So corporate taxes are the lowest in a very long time and lower than most other places and Canadians think that this is silly. Makes sense to me.