What our taxes do for us...

[Chief Geek]

I saw an article today that bugged me. A person was ranting that their taxes were going up and they get "nothing" for their taxes, that "the man" was constantly sticking it to the little people, the poor, etc.
So I thought I'd do a little research.

Here are a few costs that taxes pay for. Remember, if tax payers weren't footing the bill across the province and country, each and every municipality would have to duplicate all of this:

Road maintenance, summer: $1400 / lane kilometer, winter: $4000 lane kilometer (These are Ottawa numbers, so we could probably cut those in half for smaller communities)
OPP Constable: $75,000 /year
Paramedic x 2: $120,000 (You *need* two per call: At least one to drive, one to tend to patient)
Firefighter: x 2 $70,000 (You *need* at least two per truck: One to operate the pump, one to operate the hose: Less than four is both insane and unsafe)
Doctor: $78,000
Nurse: $55,000

Keep in mind, those salaries are just what's paid to the person, no benefits or pension amounts have been added (Which are required by law in most cases). There are *many* other costs involved in just living even in a small village: water treatment, sewage treatment, schooling, disaster control, so on and so forth.

Just from the incredibly tiny list above, though, we're looking at $398,000 in salaries alone. From my little village of 900 people to the closest city is 25 kilometers, two lanes, so add another $135,000 a year in road maintenance ($35,000 summer, $100,000 winter) just to make sure vehicles like police, ambulance, fire and citizens can get to and from the village. So right there, we're already at $533,000 a year in *basic* costs.
For a village of 900, that's about $600 a year - not too bad, right ?

Now let's add a couple more things to be a little more realistic:

1 police car: ~$32000
1 fire truck: ~$200,000 (equipped)
1 Ambulance: ~$150,000 (equipped)
1 medical office (*basic* equipment) ~$300,000

Now we're up to $1,215,000 to get set up in year one (no maintenance or disaster costs) - suddenly my village of $900 is now looking at $1350 a year per person (This is assuming that all 900 are tax payers - they're not, there are about 350 tax paying units in my village, so the realistic cost is $3900 per tax paying household)

Now, if we weren't taking this as a communal approach, you'd have to take that one and a quarter million dollars and divide it up amongst those who would actually be willing to pay. You'd *then* be faced with an ethical dillema: What do you do with a resident who needs services, but hasn't paid ? Sound insane ? There are communities in the United States where *exactly* that dillema has occurred: Man called the fire department because his home was on fire. Turned out he hadn't paid into fire protection, so his house was allowed to burn to the ground after firefighters ensured there were no people in the home.

There are a ton of costs I've missed above: One could probably realistically add at least another half million just to run my little village per year, bringing the total to 1.75 million, or $5000 / year per tax paying household. Considering my current property taxes are actually $1200 per year, I'd say I'm getting a pretty good deal and I ***know*** that I am getting services for my tax dollar, even though I may not use them all directly.

It's something to think about, whenever one may grumble about paying taxes and "getting nothing in return"...

[enoughalready]

you know what bugs me is when people go on a rant about something that they only understand half of what is really going on.
we are one of the highest taxed societies. i will not quote the numbers but you left out a few key tax indicators. one of the big ones is the gas tax--billions annually from you and i helps pay for road maintenance, bridges ect. you have probably heard in the news how townships are now getting a share of this to defer your taxes.
pst gst now the harmonized--billions-- hmm health care, education, security ect.
now the other side
the more you make the more you pay i worked very hard to succeed financially and the last raise i got put me in a new tax bracket so guess what my take home pay is $37.00 less after a $1.00/hr raise --hmmm fair?--not-- pay tens of thousands for a post secondary education--loans interest taxes to make more so i can pay more and get less services than the high school drop out why? because in our society the poor me syndrom is warped. because of my hard work and good planning i am not eligable for many deductions one being the gst rebate--why -- it would be obvious that i pay more gst than someone with less income -- oh yea i make to much because i worked hard and planned my financial future so i pay for others
do you see where this is going
now for the real truth
as a society we have said we will provide canadians with a certain standard of living with access to certain basic amenities at the same time we must balance this to ensure that those who have provided for themselves through hard work and good planning not foot the whole bill.
so i'm done my rant P i will leave you with one final example of the good pay and pay
my dad has paid into the pension fund since it's inception and while he worked hard and owns his own home he finds after paying for the basics -food,heat, hydro, phone, water-downloaded, sewer--downloaded, sanitation--downloaded and all the taxes associated with it, he barely has enough for unexpected exspenses.
but yet immagrate to this country and you get Double what my dad gets until oh yes we train you, educate you, pay your wages,provide you a place to live, ect ect. --and by the way it's on the house because we have people that pay for that! (taxes)--none of this would be an issue if everyone was treated equally

[Chief Geek]

Do you know what the number one cause of bankruptcies is in the United States ?

Bad stocks ? Nope.
Unemployement ? Nope.
Economy ? Nope.

It's medical bills.

Yes, Canada is indeed one of the most highly taxed nations on the planet. Take a good look at the benfits those taxes provide.

Don't use the medical system ? Think of it like insurance: You wish like heck you didn't have to pay the premiums, but when you need the services, man oh man, you're glad you did.

So you got a raise and your tax bracket changed ? There are quite a number of possibilities to deal with this:

• Make more money to offset the tax change
• Start a business that allows you write-offs
• Talk to a chartered accountant (Someone with actual experience in these issues)
• Talk to your employer about deferring your raise, or taking it in some other, less-taxable form.

As for the immigrants thing: Get used to it. The fact of the matter is that without immigration, this country is shrinking. That is to say that if you take away immigration, there are more deaths than births of Canadian citizens.

We are moving to an information based and more heavily automated society: This means changes for a lot of people - some who absolutely will not like them or have difficulty dealing with them. We either adapt, or we don't. Darwin had a neat little story along these lines