Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Maybe we can set aside the practical problems with an inheritance tax and turn to a problem it’s trying to address: the hardening of Canada into an intergenerational class system. A society where your parents’ income and affluence is responsible for setting your trajectory in life. Where the rich are all the children and grandchildren of the rich, the middle-class are the children and grand-children of the middle-class, and the poor are all the children and grandchildren of the poor.
We aren’t there yet. We aren’t the U.S., a country that contrary to myth has very low social mobility. But we’re trending that way. The wealthy and upper middle class are turning away from public education. The well-off are ponying up hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure their children can own homes. The trillions the Boomers will pass on will gift the fortunate with windfalls and leave others with nothing.
Is this something we’re okay with? Was Canada’s egalitarianism of the 20th century a temporary anomaly that must inevitably give way to a society divided sharply by class?
And this isn’t about Jeff Bezos and the 1 per cent. The divide I’m talking about is the divide between a family with two professionals earning $100-150k, and a family with an adult earning 50k and another working part-time, or a single mom trying to raise two kids on the salary of a retail clerk. It’s the divide we seem really uncomfortable talking about - between the top 25 per cent and everyone else.
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I guess I'd question whether the way to address a possible issue with social mobility is with an estate tax? I mean, you're saying that the US has a problem here and they have the tax in place, so that seems to be ineffective.
And to be entirely forthright, the example you give of two professionals making $125k each compared to others making $50-60k/year is just always going to be a problem. I'm not sure how you can address that kind of inequality. I went to school with some brilliant people who went on to do nothing, and some other brilliant people who went on to be surgeons or lawyers or mayors. Arguably, the issue there wasn't opportunity, but application and choices that these people made.