Canada Without Poverty is pleased to champion the 2nd annual Tax Benefits Day to highlight the beneficial role taxes play in enabling valued public services and supporting valued public institutions. Tax Benefits Day counters the misguided Tax Freedom Day, announced yesterday by the Fraser Institute. Click here for further criticism of Tax Freedom Day, including by taxation expert Neil Brooks (co-author with Linda McQuaig of The Trouble With Billionaires – a must read).
We agree with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA): “taxes are the gift we give to each other.” See CCPA’s excellent short new video that makes this clear from the perspective of daily living. See also the CCPA’s great 2006 report, The Social Benefits and Economic Costs of Taxation.
Ed Broadbent, an Honorary Director of Canada Without Poverty and a co-founder of the Broadbent Institute, recently wrote of the finding that Canadians are willing “to pay higher taxes to protect social programs that they value and help reduce income inequality.” Click here for the Institute’s report on combating inequality, in part through restoration of fair taxation.
The movement for fair and sufficient taxation is growing – witness the recent founding of Canadians for Tax Fairness, Doctors for Fair Taxation and Lawyers for Fair Taxation. And this movement is necessary to provide the public space for politicians to get behind reform for tax fairness. This is a big part of the solution to poverty and inequality in Canada.
*Read our press release for Tax Benefits Day here.
