Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
Those two beliefs are almost entirely incompatible if you accept that government should take care of the first one.
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Not really, so long as you're not an extremist.
The Libertarians almost uniformly want the tax rate to be as close to 0% as possible, while realists think you can still provide a government-funded social safety net while having tax rates that most consider reasonable. It's all a matter of perspective -- to an American citizen, Canadians must appear like we're taxed to death, but compared to much of Western Europe, we hardly pay any taxes at all.
Personally, I don't feel like I pay too much tax now (my wife and I have a combined gross annual household income of just over $100k, which I guess puts us in the top 15-20% of Canadian earners). Would I like to take home more of the money I earn? Of course I would -- who wouldn't? But I never complain about my tax "burden", and I'd rather live in a society like Canada's with slightly higher taxes but a much stronger social safety net than one like the US where taxes are lower but the safety net is almost non-existant.
In terms of corporate taxes and their affect on the economy, Canada consistently ranks as one of the top countries in which to do business.