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ze Sn Citizen -- Tuesday, January 4,1994 --11 +a Let's Talk Taxes, folks. Your taxes! by Paul Pagnuelo Death and taxes are the two certainties of life. It used to be that the only way to escape taxes was to die. But even.that may change in Canada' s wasidang This past sPring, the cash- strapped Ontario government decided" to tax the sale of dirt. Now, it may be getting ready taxpayers Things can get a little hectic around the Scugog Citizen . office and we can always use an extra pair of hands. But * Alicia Bray Is content just to plunk herself down among the many bundles of papers and mug for the camera. Alicia Is co-publisher Valerie Ellis' granddaughter, and helps brighten the office every Tuesday afternoon. to tax you when you're covered init. In its quest to find new and more novel ways to tax us, the * Ontario Fair Tax Commission is urging the government to tax the dead. After almost three years of study costing taxpayers $8.6 million, the Commission has delivered its thoughts on how the tax system can be made fair. Among the 135 recommendations, it wants local property tax exemptions - for cemeteries eliminated. It also suggests Premier Bob Rae sell his provincial counterparts and the Chretien government on the idea of a national wealth tax of 30 per cent on all estates over $1 million. And on and on its goes, in all 1,114 pages of the Commission report. The essence of the theme is to re-distribute the tax burden by soaking the so-called rich "whe-can afford to pay more; the rich in the Commission's thinking is any family with an income more than $50,000. In a move similar to letting a drunk go on a shopping spree from three to ten, And the top marginal rate for combined federal/provincial taxes hiked to the 60 per cent mark. The only enlightened part of the Commission's study is what it calls the cornerstone of sits recommendatiofts-- property tax reform. Market Value Assessment (MVA) once and for all would be trashed as the standard for property tax assessment. But its replacement--unit value assessment--would only replace one bad system with another. In place of basing assessment on the price a property would sell for on the open market, it proposes moving to a scheme which tune of 10 per cent of the total funding they get from the province. And businesses would still get hit with a property tax for education, except it would be paid to the province. And for the large majority of Ontarians who love to the GST, the Commission suggests pouring salt in a still festering woupd which has given rise to an explosive growth in the underground economy. Under the guise of a national sales tax, the scope of the provincial retail sales tax would effectively be broadened to cover a whole range of goods and services which are now exempt. would incorporate the renfal~ While harmonization of the value of the property. By rejecting the more straightforward, simpler method of pure unit assessment which would use only the . physical characteristics of the property, the assessment system will continue to be highly subjective and costly to administer. Even the Commission's most prominent and welcomed dations which would in a state-owhed-liquor store, it feels Ottawa should give Ontario the power to set its own personal income tax rate structure, As part of its "deep pocket" mentality, the number of tax brackets would be increased 1888 SCUGOG STREET (Hwy. 7A), PORT PERRY (905) 985-8839 or 1-800-668-8531 BLOWOUT SPECIAL! 50% Off Super Nintendo (LIER VER HTEER ET) shift the cost of general welfare and education from property taxes to the province, falls short of what taxpayers have been seeking. Local school boards would be able to use property taxes for discretionary spending to the two consumption taxes would eliminate the costly duplication of admi ation, the bottom. line is that the province gets to milk the cash cow for even more. Fairness as the Commission describes it, has nothing to do with equality. Nor does it mean reducing the suffocating cost of government. Fairness in its mind is penalizing you for making more than the other guy. And that says a lot for the virtue of striving for a better education and the ethic of hard work. (Let's Talk Taxes is a feature service of the Ontario Taxpayers Federation) w - -