Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathgod
The point is the government has to raise revenues somehow. Inheritance is something that a person lucks into by being born into a family that has money. It is not earned directly via hard work. So it seems like the least controversial thing to tax. Kind of astonishing how controversial the idea of an estate tax seems to be. 
Of course putting a threshold on it makes sense. The first (insert amount here) of a person's inheritance would only be taxed at a low rate, but the amount above that would be taxed at a much higher rate. That way, small inheritances don't get taxed much, but larger ones get taxed more heavily.
Perhaps raising the GST is superfluous if we're going to increase the carbon tax.
Specifically in cases that involve money in offshore accounts, shell companies, etc, it is not a good outcome when these cases get bogged down for years in the appeals process. Something has to change to make these cases more straightforward for the CRA to enforce its policies.
If you're suggesting getting rid of all taxes, and the government funding itself purely through printing money, the problem there is that it would create inflation. |
The reason that the estate tax is controversial is because (as you've already been told in this thread, but for some reason ignore), estates are taxed in Canada. There are ways to defer the tax, and things like that, but these assets are already subject to tax as it stands.