Peter

The Income Tax Act is particularly unfair to spouse who don't work:

1)Attribution Rules: If you transfer your property to your spouse for investment
purpose, the earning is attributed to you. So you can't save tax by income
splitting. That attributions remains for many years ie your spouse never actually
fully owns the property you transfered until you die or divorce.

So transfer all your family savings to your spouse before you land, if your spouse is
not working or earns substantially less. You pay a lot less tax on earning from the
family money(due to lower tax brackets) on the years to come. I regret I didn't know
this before I came. Sigh!

2)Revenue Canada won't give you a deduction at the top bracket. They give you tax
credit at the lowest bracket. So they give you 17% of $6000++ = $1000 only to
support your spouse. How to support your spouse with only $1000 a year? Your spouse
has to work!

3)You can't claim child care expense deduction or pay your non-working spouse salary
for taking care of your own children. Caring for your own children are worthless in
the eyes of Revenue Canada.

4)Your can't split your income with your spouse to lower your tax yet when it comes
to tax benefits, the government insists on combining family income. So your much
poorer spouse is not qualified for GHT/HST or CTB rebates.

5)The Canadian income tax system puts married couples and family in serious
disadvantages. It has since been extended to common-law and same sex couples.

Canadian income tax system disadvantages married couples:
http://www.mae.carleton.ca/~nmcfadye/tax.html

Peter

wzombie

I have a better and much more worthwhile link:

http://www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/

There, you can read the REAL legislation and regulations regarding personal income
tax in Canada, and not rely on some free advice given out on a newsgroup by someone
with a yahoo.com mail account.

Also, the name of the agency responsible for taxation in Canada is the "Canada
Customs and Revenue Agency" and not "Revenue Canada".

Any reputable Chartered Accountant, Certified General Accountant, or other
accredited tax specialist can offer valuable professional advice with regards to
taxation in Canada.

RJWM

Peter

I don't dispute that and I got my surprising info from CCRA site. Of course I know
about CCRA but too lazy to spell the full name. Don't be so fussy! You didn't pay
me a penny.

My intention is to warn people so that they know that it is a trap! Nobody told me
about the tax consequences of moving to Canada. No one! Not even respectable
Immigrant Consultants in this group. They only said Canadian tax is high but no one
mention about joint return ban and strict attribution rules which are completely
opposite to the US. I realized it after filing my tax.

I have people emailed me to thank for my tax advise. It saves them thousands of tax
dollars by transfering their assets before they come.

Prospective immigrants need to find out tax consequences of moving to Canada
especially if you are coming from a much richer country like the USA. If you can
afford it, better consult a CPA before coming.

Peter

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Gary L. Dare

My intention is to warn people so that they know that it is a trap!
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It's your fault for not doing more research. How do we know everybody's personal
situation? Single, dual career couple, single parent, widow, single income family,
etc. There are plenty of debates in a handful of newsgroups like Can.taxes and
Misc.taxes in which I, myself, have debated with Patrick Coghlan of Ottawa. For
singles and dual career couples, it is par between the ten provinces and the dozen
highest-taxed states. Patrick argues for single income families as a few people still
live in that ancient way. If it's was that important to you, you should have moved to
the US or France for joint returns.

I have posted a set of benchmarks, for singles (and say that multiple times) to
establish a baseline for comparison many, many, many times in the past year including
in this group. My sister in Calgary actually has a lower tax rate than Chicago for
similar income in local dollars. Look for them on Google. You just weren't paying
attention.

--
Gary L. Dare [email protected]

"Je me souviens"

Peter

Yes. It is my fault. In fact I was too busy preparing for other stuffs and lost
sights of it. Now having suffering some losses, I am writing to warn others so
they won't have to suffer the same loss again. Why enrich CCRA and make your
family poorer?

I know from your postings that Canadian tax rate is not that high. How I wish you
also mention no income-splitting joint return and strict attribution rules,
completely opposite of US.

Peter

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Gary L. Dare

I know from your postings that Canadian tax rate is not that high.

Thanks for reading. It's always a nice feeling that somebody took the time. I was
surprised how many new names appeared on a debate between me and Pat on Misc.taxes &
Can.taxes in the Spring. I clipped some of that data into enquiries on this
newsgroup.

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The US Census 2000 results show that less than 25% of American households are now
nuclear families (mom, dad and maybe kids) so it's actually LESS important there than
most people think. Married-filing-jointly applies only to heterosexual marrieds. (A
shocking finding of Census 2000 is that 20% of households in the US are nuclear
families with the parents unmarried - double the rate in Europe!)

The majority of countries focus on individual tax returns not family returns. Also,
despite the National Post op-eds, it is Canada not the US that is moving closer to a
flat tax with no bias to lifestyle. Alberta's provincial tax is counted as such,
Manitoba may move to that next and I'm fair certain that less than 20% of US states
have a flat local income tax system.

--
Gary L. Dare [email protected]

"Je me souviens"

Peter

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It depends on race too. 80% of Asian households are nuclear families.

The US's problem is the marriage penalty tax. I knew people who refused to get
married because of tax consequence. The senate is taking the right step in
eliminating marriage penalty tax effective in a few years time.

I read somewhere that 1/3 of children in US came from single parent family, mostly
single mum and life is very tough for them. They should be given more tax relief.

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Flat tax is unfair to the poor and needy. The rich and childless should share more
tax burden than the poor and those who need to support a child particularly single
parents. And government should spend responsibly, not wasting public money on special
interest like the fast ferry project etc.

Peter

Gary L. Dare

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I would venture that half of the US nuclear families are immigrants. In other
words, nuclear families have become the exception for native-born Americans rather
than the rule.

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The US marriage penalty applies to dual career couples, worst for those of similar
incomes. The US federal tax cut program is phased in over a decade and is subject
to cancellation, a likely prospect if/when their federal budget falls to deficit.
Also, like in Ontario, there is the real prospect of download- ing as states and
cities take advantage to up their income tax rates. The irony is that the overall
tax load in the US will go up due to state and local tax hikes under cover of
federal tax cuts.

Chicago has talked about a city income tax like New York City has (adding a 50%
premium to the US's highest state income tax) and with loss of many federal
subsidies, it wouldn't surprise me if it finally arrives in 2002.

http://cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/01/04/taxes.html

Add to that the possible removal of the cap on the Social Security tax (you know of
FICA, 99.999% of Canadians don't) to cover all income like their Medicare tax does
already. The Reagan tax cut is was doubled US payroll taxes versus Canada.

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This is social engineering. Why should I, as a single in a dual career couple,
subsidize other people to help raise THEIR children? A flat tax is lifestyle-neutral.

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Apparently, all those BC'ers that I've known who swear not to have ever voted NDP nor
Social Credit finally showed up at their provincial polls. (-;

--
Gary L. Dare [email protected]

"Je me souviens"

Serguei Patchkovskii

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[usenetquote2]: : should share more tax burden than the poor and those who need to support a child[/usenetquote2]
[usenetquote2]: : particularly single parents.i[/usenetquote2]

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One possible answer is that unless -somebody- rises enough kids to keep the society
running, your life style is not sustainable in the long run. Therefore, even if you
choose not to raise your own kids, you stand to benefit from somebody else's, and may
be reasonably expected to contribute something towards raising them.

Of course, this argument is conditional on the society's need, or lack thereof, for
more human bodies. If the birth rate falls below the replacement rate (as is the case
in Canada, and most European countries), and society wishes to maintain routhly
constant population, or even grow, one -must- come up with the missing bodies
somehow. One way is to encourage immigration - which so far works fine for Canada.
Another way is to help your own people to raise more children ....

/Serge.P

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Home page: http://www.cobalt.chem.ucalgary.ca/ps/