Looting/Troughing at the Treasury
Not to pick on Jim Flaherty overly, but I'd really like to deliver a boot to the nut sack of every one of his supporters. The guy is possibly the worst political opportunist and hypocrite outside of John Baird. At least, I assume he's outside of John Baird (nudge nudge wink wink).
This latest musing aloud to allow "Income Splitting" which is cleverly being sold as a way to even up the tax monster for stay-at-home moms is really sticking in my craw. And my craw is pretty stuck already with things I detest about Canada's New Conservative Government - which is so startling reminiscent of Ontario's Old Conservative Government. Not the Bill Davis one (and to be fair - I hated it with a passion most people reserve for Hitler or Stalin or George W. Bush) but the Mike Harris one. You remember Mike Harris? He was that no good thug who ran the Province of Ontario for a while because people are really stupid and actually thought he was "The Taxslayer" and not just some useless numbskull who had conned his way to the top of the useless dung heap that was the Big Blue Machine after Bill Davis retired from politics to do whatever greasy old pigs do after they're done at the trough.
Now where was I...
Oh yeah - income splitting. Now, few people seem to realize, with all the whining that traditional families seem to get up to about tax unfairness and yadda yadda blah blah in between organizing campaigns to prevent other people from having their human rights recognized in law - that stay-at-home moms (i.e. nannies/cooks/maids/sexbuddies) are already claimed as dependents on their husbands' tax forms. Now, since stay-at-home wives don't generate any income, and therefore don't pay any income tax - I figure being claimed as a dependent is probably as good as it should get - taxwise.
Income splitting, on the other hand, is a whole other ballgame being sold as something that is for those "middle-class" stay-at-home traditional family moms that is really going to benefit most - the rich buddies of guys like Jim Flaherty. What's being billed as the "only fair thing to do" is going to screw everybody who isn't a wealthy family values supporter. In other words - everybody who doesn't support Jim Flaherty. That's because real middle-class families already get a tax break because - the husband can claim the stay-at-home mom as a dependent.
Which she is. Oh. And boy - she is. I know. I was one. (And all I can say by way of advice is - make sure, mom, you and daddy-o have a joint account BEFORE anybody gives up her perfectly good job to stay at home with the kidlins.)
On the upside (and boy, oh boy - could there be an upside for people amused by bad government policy - i.e. bribes for votes to make a minority government a majority government) - gay couples will flock to the altar with the added human rights argument "why should we be cut out of income splitting?", lots of people with low paying crappy jobs will quit them - whether they have kids or not - to give their partner the tax break that will be the equivalent of working "hey - make your own dinner - I lay on the couch all day so you could get a tax break!", and people will think really long and hard about getting divorced - just not very long and hard about getting married in the first place, "Yay! You work, I'll stay home! Le'ts get hitched! Tax break!"
Still, the government had better make sure both incomes are going into a joint account for equal use by both parties or... again - boy, oh boy - if you think divorce is ugly now, wait until the income splitting divorces start hitting the fan.
Zowie!
And on the up, up, upside? Income splitting could deplete the government coffers to the point where there isn't any money left to bring democracy to Afghanistan and hundreds of young Canadian lives will be saved because there wasn't enough money to send them there to wage the war that needs to be waged in the meantime.
Jim Flaherty must be stopped.
