this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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54
Freeland to Scrap Canada’s Capital Gains Hike If She’s Elected (www.bloomberg.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
32 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Do I smell austerity for the working class?

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm fine with a lower inclusion rate if we cap it at a fixed dollar threshold.

If you make $1M in a year from capital gains, just tax it 100% as income.

The real problem with this is executives getting paid primarily in stocks and paying a lower average tax rate than the middle class because 50% (currently 33%) is excluded.

Also, Freeland being the #2 in Trudeau's government, and all her policies being to undo the things they did looks bad to me. I can't shake that either she was ineffective or they were just bad ideas.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Getting paid in stocks doesn't affect how much income you report though. Shares are taxed as income as soon as they vest, and options are considered income when you exercise them at the difference between fair market value and the strike price.

It is only additional capital gains after that point that are taxed at the reduced rate because it is the same starting point as if you bought the shares on the open market.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

There's nobody good to vote for.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

We’ll see. I’m interested in Carney, he’s saying the things I wanted to hear from the liberals for years.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

Perhaps not good but less bad is what we look for.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Singh it is, then.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

While I do not want to vote for Singh, the leader, I would vote for the NDP candidate in my riding if the polls don't show them far behind.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

For better or worse, in Canada we don’t vote for PM, it goes to the leader of the party.

Both the other parties are clearly in the pocket of corporations. The NDP held the Liberal’s feet to the fire and got us dental care.

That alone is reason enough to vote for them in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

No disagreement.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm voting NDP, but after that shameful instance of childish name calling on Singh's part. Idk. I don't really have anything against him, from what I've seen and read he's not doing too bad a job in the leadership role. Would have been better if he'd been a bit more mature, and not stooped to the same shenanigans as little PP. It's a bad look. He had the chance to be the adult in the room, but flubbed it.
If anyone has any reliable sourced reporting re: Singh doing well or poorly, I'd be interested in seeing it. I would prefer to be an informed voter.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Well, it’s like this:

We’ve been flip-flopping back and forth on Conservatives and Liberals since forever. No one’s happy.

If it weren’t for the NDP agreement with the Liberals we wouldn’t be getting dental care, which comes in to effect for the rest of Canadians this year, and pharmacare which is supposed to come later.

These are real tangible benefits that every Canadian will be able to see and feel and that means more to me than a carbon tax.

You’re worried about Singh name-calling? The dude is getting our teeth fixed and he’s not even PM. Focus on the real things.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Totally fair. And this is exactly the type of thing I was asking for.
Hard to keep perspective sometimes.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

If you make $1M in a year from capital gains, just tax it 100% as income.

Capital gains don’t accrue until you actually sell your shares. If you try to tax people like this then they’ll just never sell the shares. Instead, they’ll use their shares as collateral for loans and lines of credit if they need cash.

Extremely high taxes lead to very low tax revenues since people do everything possible to avoid paying them. Conversely, lowering a tax rate can and does increase tax revenue as people start paying the tax instead of trying to get around it (often because the cost of getting around the tax makes it no longer worth it).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

We tax the theoretical assessed value of houses, why not stocks?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

How would that work? Stocks go up and down all the time. Sometimes people hold them for years, sometimes they trade them rapidly throughout the day.

Suppose we tax people on a percentage of the increases in their stocks when they go up. Are we going to give them a tax refund when the stocks go down? Or is it just going to be a ratchet that drains away all their money as the stock rapidly goes up and down throughout the day?

There’s a lot of different things you can do but at the end of the day the question is: will people still want to keep investing after you make the change? If the answer is no, then why not simply shut down the stock market altogether? Of course the answer to that is that everyone will start investing through a black market.

The really hard part about tax policy is that you can’t just look at the way things are now and then assume they’ll stay the same while you collect a tax off the top. In reality, people change their behaviour to avoid taxes as much as possible so taxes on specific things tend to have distortionary effects on the market.

If you want a very good example of a non-distortionary tax, look at land value taxes. The beautiful thing about them is that you can’t take your ball and go home. You can’t move the land with you to another country (not without an army anyway). You can’t even destroy the value of the land (for LVT purposes) by say, burning down the buildings, because LVT is based on the value of the land without any buildings or other improvements. All you can do is pay the tax or sell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I've always thought a tax on taking a loan out using your stock as collateral is a good idea.

Borrow 1mil, tax it like half of capital gains. Repay the loan, get it back. Sell the assets to pay the loan off, pay the other half of the capital gains.

Or something like that.

Only do it for the wealthy on these bigger transactions. Maybe even starting at 10m, I dunno. They can afford the accountants to do it right at that point.

Edit: and only if the money is taken out of the investment account or used outside an investment account. So you can trade on margin, but not withdraw the loan to buy a house.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Start it at 10m? So if you only borrow 9m you pay no tax?

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's always austerity for the working class.

[–] 9488fcea02a9 -5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

i agree that the rich need to be taxed, but i don't think taxing these rich people is what will solve most of our problems.... taxing a few thousand rich people who made $1M on stocks or whatever is a drop in the bucket compared to our real problems.

what are the real problems? billionaire oligarchs plundering our country. what are the exact steps to fix the problem? i'm not smart enough to figure it out. but we can start by ending corporate handouts, or things like oil companies sticking us with the cleanup bill when the leave town. fix price gouging on groceries and telecoms. i think actions like these are going to have a huge impact on the prosperity of working canadians versus an increase in a capital gains tax on the moderately rich.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

First off, this move is antithetical to the idea of making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. Second, if you're making $1M on capital gains in a year, you're not upper middle class or lower upper class - or whatever 'they're not that rich' argument you intend. Third, and most importantly, the upper middle class/lower upper class (to use dated terminology) being taxed on their capital gains is a by-product. These taxes also catch, probably as they are intended to, people making 10 million or 100 million (I can't imagine lol). And let's not forget, they didn't work an hour to make that money.

How come only those of us with jobs should pay income taxes?

[–] 9488fcea02a9 -5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Second, if you’re making $1M on capital gains in a year, you’re not upper middle class or lower upper class - or whatever ‘they’re not that rich’ argument you intend.

they really aren't that rich in the grand scheme of things..... they're not buying off politicians, or sending armies of lobbyists to ottawa. they're not propping up our monopolies and leaving toxic tailing ponds with millions in cleanup costs

i get it if people are really struggling and a cardiac surgeon or small business owner looks like a big bad rich person who needs to be taxed. but westons, rogers, and irvings in this country are happy to sit and watch while we go after these small potato rich folk while leaving them the continue pillaging the country

These taxes also catch, probably as they are intended to, people making 10 million or 100 million

anyone that rich has really good accountants and asset hiding schemes. they're not paying taxes anyways.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

There are people who have to work for there money, and there are people who passively make money (and basically don't pay taxes on that passive income)

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The working class ain't "rich" people though

[–] 9488fcea02a9 -4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

lots of working class people are going to be hit with these capital gains taxes...

i am probably going to get hit by this tax increase and i'm not particularly wealthy. but i don't care either way, if i'm taxed, then i'm taxed

my point is that there are bigger fish to fry, rather than going after dentists or whatever moderately wealthy people.

people online seem to think that anyone with a portfolio of investments is basically on the same level as galen weston....

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I think you missed something here. There was a mention of austerity for the working class. I said it's always austerity for the working class. Yes there are bigger fish to fry that had nothing to do with what was said.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

she's following into Harris' footsteps. Courting conservative voters... bad move

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

The parallels between the republican/democrat and conservative/liberal parties in that dems/libs are to some degree better than the more right-wing parties but still bent of @#$%ing the working class is tough to stomach

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Of course Bloomberg posts this jumping up and down.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

globe and mail editorial endorsement of Freeland to follow 🤦‍ (facepalm)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

That paper has gone down hill.

My dad loves the new direction, I find it's an editorialized mess, so we don't talk about the globe and mail anymore.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

Oh, so she doesn't want to win, got it.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago

Of course she will. She’s a Nazi. That’s not a wild accusation because I don’t like her- she has been linked to and openly defended Nazis in multiple scandals.

And fascists defend capital. They are one and the same.

https://globalnews.ca/video/9987040/freeland-asked-about-reopening-investigation-into-nazi-war-criminals-living-in-canada/amp/