A few years back, ordinary people walked out and protested to occupy Wall and Bay Street.
Their concerns dealt with the huge one-sided profit benefits enjoyed by participants of the stock market. The for-profit media paid as little attention as possible to this group, knowing others watching these people would soon tire of the protest. At the end protest, there was a feeling that the point had been made and changes would follow. Changes have never ever come to correct this imbalance.
Two years ago, the Liberals campaigned on making changes by taxing stock options. We all know what happened as soon as the Liberals got into power. That juicy promise was pulled off the table.
The KMPG scandal is just another foray the wealthy have used to hide their taxable income. This has the average taxpayer shaking his head. If the average person were to do this, that person would be so far in jail they'd be pumping sunshine to them.
This week, we seen gasoline rise 10 cents a litre. This is not the first time these multinationals have manipulated fuel costs. With crude oil at or near $50 a barrel, a litre of fuel should be around 80 cents.
Government will discuss it but they never take action to combat these unfair increases in the cost of these essential commodities.
The wealthy receive very generous tax reductions in Canada, which even at times can include a vacation. All one has to do is attend a conference, which becomes a tax deduction.
Here's another example. A working person has a cleaning person come in and clean their place once a week. They will pay going rate plus GST and PST, but this is not tax deductible. A wealthy person has a maid who cleans their house.
He doesn't pay GST or PST plus he deducts wages and benefits from his taxes. Maids may provide the same service, but one group using this service is being discriminated against.
It's not uncommon to hear big business asking their employee to take a wage reduction. This employee has the same monthly costs with less money to pay it.
Within this last year, we provided grant and loans to a large company that in the past year had laid off 14,000 employees. This caused the company not to meet its deliveries on time. The senior people in this organization were to receive $32 million in bonuses because company costs were down.
The people protested the company and for once the for-profit media was on the side of the people.
The company has now deferred the bonuses till 2020. History teaches us one thing and that is history repeats itself. The unfairness eventually creates unrest in the people. The violent acts we are seeing, some people are saying can be attributed to frustration. It's time all governments tighten up their taxation policies. It's time for the rich to pay their fair share.
Stan New
Prince George
