One of the major failures of Canadian governments over the years has been the refusal to implement tax policies beneficial to the family unit. Enamoured with expensive top down social engineering, governments have left Canada with high taxation which has crippled family formation and brought into play more control by the government in what should be strictly family only decisions.
Status of Women Canada has also failed to represent family oriented women, leading to women’s loss of freedom to choose full time homemaking and child rearing. Instead, every effort has been made to draw women into the paid workforce, according to feminism’s simplistic measure of “equality.” That is, hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been spent chasing the failed feminist dream of female independence from family, and this has exacerbated Canada’s problems, since we can no longer replace our population, a basic requirement for economic viability. This loss in population is due in part to high taxation requiring women to forsake any career but that of one in the paid workforce.
Ironically, women’s full employment is both a symptom of unbridled capitalism and radical socialist ideology. See: Desperate Swedish Socialist Housewives at www.profam.org for an expose of the ideological battle over family economics raging internationally for over a century.
REAL Women has repeatedly called for family oriented taxation because the family is the basic unit of society. (See REAL Women Makes a Presentation to the Subcommittee on Finance, REALity Nov/Dec 2005.) The great majority of Canadians place a high value on family life and young Canadians still hope to live happy married lives with spouse, children and grandchildren. (See “The Misrepresentation of Family Statistics,” of this issue.) The government should be encouraging these views by making it easier for families to give birth to and raise their children – not to punish them for doing so.
Conservative Government Initiatives
The present Conservative government, however, has in fact taken some commendable initiatives to recognize the family unit:
It has returned tax dollars to Canadian families via the popular $1,200 a year Universal Child Care Benefit. This was instrumental in shifting votes to the Conservative Party in the last election. This policy sensibly supports Canadian parents, the primary caregivers and early childhood educators par excellence. The UCCB treats all children equally without favoring children of dual income families.
Other Family Initiatives by the Conservatives
The last Conservative budget (March, 2007) announced a new $2,000 child tax credit for parents with children under 18 years of age, providing up to $310 per child in tax relief. The budget also provided that the value of the spousal tax deduction be made equal to that of the principal earner, a gender equality measure not hostile to the family unit. Pension splitting for retired Canadians was announced in October 2006, which recognized that spouses work together as a unit – with pensions being deferred family income, not just monies allotted to the bread winning spouse.
The October 31, 2007 Economic Statement (mini-budget) announced long overdue broad-based personal income and corporate tax deductions. It raised the basic personal deduction from $8,929 to $9,600 for 2007 and 2008, and to $10,100 for 2009. Some analysts have recommended raising it further to $15,000.
Still Work To Do:
Even with all these welcome changes, there is still something very important left yet undone. Pension splitting has highlighted the fact that it is unfair that family income itself cannot also be split for couples for taxation purposes. That is, a single family income should be split between the couple, both paying separate taxes on it, thus reducing the amount paid.
Income Splitting
Currently, in households where one parent, usually the mother, chooses to care for the children at home, the tax burden is significantly higher than for the household which chooses to go the dual income route. [See: Tax Penalty of Single-Income Families, REALity May/June 2005] This drives mothers into the workforce and children into substitute institutional care, which is an unacceptable interference in the autonomy of the family. Public policy should be neutral on issues of career choice for women, and should treat women at home and in the workplace with equal regard.
Further inequity exists in that some provinces offer income splitting opportunities to some professionals, for example doctors and dentists in Ontario, through incorporation of their practices, opportunities which are not available to all Canadians in all provinces. See: Splitting the Difference is Easy for Some: Ontario doctors, dentists can flow income to families Commenting on income splitting through incorporation and pension splitting, the financial analyst who authored the above-referenced article concluded:
…unfairness seems to be the norm when it comes to uneven taxation on split incomes. Just ask Ontario lawyers and accountants who are helping medical professionals enjoy a tax benefit they themselves are denied.
Government Surplus Offers Opportunity
The present Conservative government should be commended for a significant reversal toward more conscientious taxation of Canadian families announced in its mini budget this fall by returning tax dollars to needy families. Huge recurring federal surpluses, obviously a result of excessive taxation and expanding government power, offer an excellent opportunity, however, to finally take measures to make Canadian taxation further family friendly by income splitting for married couples. This would recognize the contribution that parents make to society when they sacrifice to give birth to and pursue the formation of the next generation of Canadians.
Library of Parliament research estimates that the cost to the federal treasury of income splitting for all Canadians would be $1.5 billion annually. This is a fraction of the projected government surplus for this year which some analysts predict is headed toward $23 billion, making it the highest on record. (Mounting Surplus Spurs Calls for Tax Cuts, Canwest News Service, Sept 29, 2007)
Feminist Objections
It is interesting that whenever the issue of income splitting has come up over the years, strong objections to it has been made by feminists -- objections to which the Liberals always listened. Feminists see women as perpetual victims. They fear that income splitting will inhibit equality between men and women by requiring women to reveal their income to their husbands, and that it would serve as a disincentive to the employment of mothers. But Statistics Canada informs us that women are primary wage earners in 29% of dual-earner couples and studies show that women outnumber men in universities in North America 3 to 2. Women cannot always be viewed as economically unequal to men and would benefit equally from tax relief. In addition, feminists, who claim to speak for all women, ignore the fact that when the family unit benefits from lower taxes through income splitting or tax deductions, women also benefit. When the male family wage earner keeps more earned money in his pocket, his entire family benefits, including women. This is not according to the strict feminist dogma aimed at controlling women’s choices, hence the noisy feminist opposition to income splitting.
Conclusion
While special interest groups were pampered during Canada’s infatuation with liberalism, the family suffered severe blows to its autonomy. Bureaucratic concern for the family wage is almost non existent as even Statistics Canada now focuses on “household income”, assuming that a family can no longer be supported by one income, but must have at least two workers earning salaries in order to function.
A nation cannot thrive without strong families. Liberals try to belittle this fact as a mere whim of “social conservatives” or the “religious right.” Objective analysis however, clearly proves that nothing could be more dangerous to the collective future of Canadians than continued neglect of family oriented economic and social policy.
Please contact the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and your MP, thanking them for advances made in developing a more family friendly taxation system and encourage them to include income-splitting in the spring budget of 2008:
Their addresses are as follows:
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
Langevin Building
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2
Fax: 613 941-6900
The Honourable James M. Flaherty
Minister of Finance
Department of Finance Canada
140 O'Connor Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G5
Fax: (613) 992-8320
Your MP
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 |
