by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

It’s time to bust the warm, fuzzy myth that the compassionate state confiscates half of what you earn and then taxes you again when you spend what’s left.

Quebec’s tax system - as has been pointed out elsewhere - punishes the poor worse than any other province. Our taxman has the gall to demand money from those earning as little as $6,213 a year. No other province taxes people making as little as that - indeed, in Alberta, you can make twice that and still not pay a cent in income tax. If you make six grand in a year - about what a Canadiens’ goaltender makes in six minutes, by the way - you’re not just being charged a token cut either. Little rollers making sixty-two hundred per annum are forced to fork over 16 per cent their earnings, once again, the most shamefully high introduction tax rate in the country. And if you can ever overcome the odds and move into the middle class, Quebec’s government vampires want even more of your blood: here in la belle province you jump into the highest tax bracket at a lower level than anywhere else in Canada.

For some reason, questioning taxation isn’t high on the agenda of the social activist crowd, but it’s time we all examined this obscene cash rape of the less well-off. Presumably, this government extortion of the poor chez nous is deemed okay because the tax dollars are thought to be spent on good things.

But unless you have a magic red phone that connects to the premier and prime minister, you have no direct say in how your money gets spent. When I was a kid, a rather naïve one in retrospect, I assumed that somewhere in the packet of tax forms was a checklist of government expenditures that we could tick off to ensure that our money doesn’t get spent on the things to which we are ethically opposed. Not only does such an option not exist, I’ve never even seen it suggested.

For example, I don’t want to pay any money to farm subsidies because I don’t like milk and also because the cash is used to undercut Third World farmers hoping to grab a share of the world market, thus ensuring that those nations stay poor. I highly object to paying to service the debt, too. As far as I’m concerned, the whole darn government should shut down until the debt goes to zilch. The concept of having parts of my wages deducted at source to help pay for a squad of bureaucrats that cruises around threatening people for speaking English almost sends me into vomiting convulsions. And would somebody else please pay my share of the upcoming $250-million concert hall? I’m not a big classical music fan. Thanks.

Allow me to change the subject briefly, as this topic has me hyperventilating. I realized that what this city really needs is a Valentine’s Day parade. Indoors. It would be unlike any other because it would travel through the downtown indoor malls of the underground city. Okay, the floats might have to be small to fit through some of those tunnels, but hey, think intimate.

Okay... taxes. I’d prefer not to pay the feds to have Sheila Copps give millions to Maclean’s and other such pap, for some bogus notion of keeping them Canadian.

I’d prefer politicians not touch my wages to pay for the Senate, or the Ottawa Senators, for that matter. The gun registry is very nice but it works out to $30 per Canadian, and I’ve got seven people under my charge, so no thanks, I’m trying to cut down.

Though we assume tax reduction advocates are right-wing loons, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is lobbying to make sure the 2.1-million Canadians who earn under $15,000 pay no income tax. They want all sorts of corporate welfare abolished as well. It’s time activists, conservatives and everybody else start making noise about the casual and careless confiscation of our cash. :

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca