Free Talk Live

If the people in charge don't pay their taxes, neither should we.

Tax evasion, both at home and abroad, is stealing potentially tens of billions of dollars in revenue from federal coffers and ultimately sapping money out of the pockets of law-abiding Canadian taxpayers."People that don't pay their fair share of the taxes means the rest of us have to pay more," says Liberal Sen. Percy Downe, who has been leading the fight in Parliament on tax evasion. "It's a tremendous revenue loss to the country." He wants the government to boost the CRA's funding for fighting tax evasion.

Last year, almost 1,800 people followed Superman's lead, renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards. That's a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It's also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined.

Every year around this time, millions of Americans fill out a form 1040 – hoping they don't have to write a check to Uncle Sam. Millions more know they will be getting a “refund” (which is normally a return of some portion of their money that was withheld in excess of what the IRS thinks they were owed) while a smaller number will receive a “refund” in excess of the amount withheld by the IRS.

The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
The fast-growing pay of federal employees has captured the attention of fiscally conservative Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives in last week's elections. Already, some lawmakers are planning to use the lame-duck session that starts Monday to challenge the president's plan to give a 1.4% across-the-board pay raise to 2.1 million federal workers.

The owner of an exotic animal preserve who committed suicide after freeing dozens of lions, tigers and other beasts owed tens of thousands in unpaid taxes, and a fellow big-cat enthusiast said that he had taken in so many creatures he was "in over his head."

For decades, public sector unions have peddled the fantasy that government employees were paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. In fact, the pay disparity is the other way around. Government workers, especially at the federal level, make salaries that are scandalously higher than those paid to private sector workers. And let's not forget private sector workers not only have to be sufficiently productive to earn their paychecks, they also must pay the taxes that support the more generous jobs in the public sector.

For decades, public sector unions have peddled the fantasy that government employees were paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. In fact, the pay disparity is the other way around. Government workers, especially at the federal level, make salaries that are scandalously higher than those paid to private sector workers. And let's not forget private sector workers not only have to be sufficiently productive to earn their paychecks, they also must pay the taxes that support the more generous jobs in the public sector.

Americans armed themselves to the teeth and paid through the nose to have a smoke, according to a U.S. government report released on Wednesday. The U.S. federal government collected $20.6 billion in taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms and ammunition in fiscal year 2009, up 41 percent from the previous fiscal year, according to the annual report of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. --- Remember, kids... "Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.