Unfortunately, the solutions are fairly easy but it would be political suicide for anyone who would even dare to actually propose anything that would ruffle the feathers of the vested interests, the powerful or (God forbid /s) the wealthiest 10%, or the “untouchable” 0.1%.
Simplify/Regularize the tax code by eliminating all ambiguity :
by removing exceptions and loopholes for corporation and individuals (it only helps the wealthy with “top gun” accountants to “legally” avoid/reduce taxes).
pre-filled tax declaration should be expanded or made automatic for every individuals with simple tax situations (they should not be worrying about taxes and tax credits when their income in lower than a inflation indexed preset treshold)
make everyone’s tax information public or accessible for every citizens similar to Tax transparency in Finland (PDF) it helps prevent/detect/reduce social inequalities and keep every one accountable toward each others
exclude tax filling softwares and companies whom have vested interest in making tax declarations as complex and as unintelligible as possible by lobbying government
increase financing and auditing of Canada Revenue Agency to help better pursue, prosecute and recover wealth hidden in tax Havens, or create a new separate branch of the CRA tasked exclusively to handle corporate tax shenanigans/evasion and deep pocketed individuals
This is a partial, but relevant, copy of one of my previous post (check my post history for the original long post).
Add a holdings tax? That’s the only way to ever claw back anything from the billionaire class. Taxes aren’t paid until things are sold. We must make it cost money to hold onto immeasureable levels of wealth.
I don’t know much about economics, but I think wealth inequality and affordability issues may both be effects of other causes, like: neoliberal capitalist government policies, advertising ubiquity, and unprecedented consumer spending relative to earnings (eg, credit card debt).
I like the saying “buy less, be more” and I think it illustrates how society’s doing the opposite. Dual earner households are the norm yet many seem to have less money to spend than generations before. So long as people need a new ‘smartphone’ every year or two and are overly dependent on services like food delivery or meal prep kits they’re probably not going to be able to build savings. (For those making more money, replace ‘smartphone’ with brand new car.) “The cost of conformity.”
I remember working a summer job in the financial industry (which I’ve spent very little time in). I heard of a boss who pushed new, young employees to get expensive car leases as soon as they joined the company. With that monthly bill on their books, those workers couldn’t skip a beat at work. My point is that until “consumer spending is too low” for the capitalists’ fancy, (the threat of) poverty in other people is profitable for the ultra rich and these trends will likely continue
My entire approach and personality at work changed when I over leveraged myself on my mortgage. It’s like I can feel the physical weight of it day to day. Horrible.
I feel like this chart tells a pretty clear story about where all our affordability issues are coming from.
I also suspect if the top quintile were separated out into it’s own graph of this nature, it would probably have a similar look where the majority of the wealth held by that 20% is held by the top few percent of the group.
According to the article it’s Q3 2023. From what I can tell the data is drawn from here, which is sourced from the National Balance Sheet Accounts which are updated quarterly.
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