Basic Math Education Day

There are few “movements” that use fake data as well as the Frazer Institute's “Tax Freedom Day.” Even with Neil Brooks' paper debunking Frazer's math a few years ago, newspapers still bring it out this time of the year. Sure, no one want to pay out money; but to say that we are grossly overtax is just wrong. I have lived in a few countries, under different tax systems and I have no major complaints about the Canadian system. In Hong Kong, the personal income tax is relatively low and that make people happy. The trick there is that the government gets its money from land auctions. By keeping land value artificially high, the government racks in shocking amounts of money. High land value means housing is by far the largest expanditure of anyone living in Hong Kong. Consequently, rents, home price and morgages are psuedo-taxes that people pay to not just the government that provide them services but developers and landowners who do nothing for them. Money is still out of people's pocket, just under a different name. In the U.S., over a decade ago, I paid thousands of dollars a year on health insurance as a young man. I received worse service there than I do here now. And I do not think I pay more, percentage wise, then than now. It is easy to get blinded by officially sounding names and fancy numbers, but one must look at the whole picture. Canadians, over all, are as wealthy as any other country and receive better services from their government than most. The problem is not how much we pay but how we make sure the money is spent correctly.