First Blind Them, Then Mug Them
If anyone was still in the dark about McGuinty’s motivation for a combined sales tax, the latest trial baloon should clear your mind. The Toronto Star says that there is pressure from within the party to hide the sales tax within the price of goods.
There can only be two reasons for wanting this outcome. The first is that when the tax hits us, the outrageous result to the price of such things as gasoline, heating costs, hydro, funerals, etc., will cause us all to go ballistic. And, perhaps, finally, to pick up our pitchfork and look for some politician’s rear to bury it in.
The second, and by far the more dangerous, is that a hidden tax can be raised anytime without lighting any fuses. This is the longterm intention of the McGuinty government. Remember, these guys had drained the treasury and were going into deficit before the US mortgage meltdown hit the financial markets. In an era of economic bounty, they had seen fit to saddle Ontarioans with the biggest tax hike in history (health tax), and then went on a spending spree to rival Bob Rae, and to purchase enough public sector dependents to buy the next election. While all this transpired, they were setting the stage for a rout of Ontario’s industrial capacity, loosing hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs before this hyper-recession even hit us.
The inevitable outcome of this ineptitude is a massive projected deficit which will compete with the federal deficit for superlatives. The feds, however, are spending their money on stimulus measures, while McGuinty is hosing the countryside in an effort to retain voting constituents and create makework of the "cigarette police" variety.
A local talk show edition on the subject of the HST, clogged telephone lines for three hours. Consumers are worried, but not totally informed on the enormity of this tax gouge. Some say, with resignation, "Let them bury it, I don’t want to know. They are going to take it anyway."
This attitude is dead wrong. There would be no discussion of hiding the tax, if, first, it was a good economic measure, and secondly, if politicians were not scared already. It is not, and they are, and some pressure now, will tip the scales. We should be cramming the phone lines and e-mail boxes of local Liberal politicians, with fire in our voices.
Remember this, that once the tax is put in place, only hell will remove it. And, once it is hidden, we will be raped.
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PS: While I am always grateful to hear from those who take the time to leave a comment, the ones that appear below, are missing the point. It does not matter what shape these taxes take, although, as I pointed out, a hidden tax will create great opportunity for the government to abuse the taxpayer. This province is undergoing wrenching economic turmoil. We have become a have-not province for the first time. Huge taxpayer funded bailouts are occurring to revive the auto sector. In the face of all this, does it make any sense whatever to be spiking energy costs? That alone will crush any economic revival that may be occurring by next summer, and will drive another nail in the coffin of our auto industry. Does this government have any clue what it is doing?
June 4th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I’ve always thought the opposite, that it’s wrong for the sales tax to be added afterwards. The price on the tag/sticker should be how much you have to pay.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
It is possible for a tax to be included in the price but not hidden; you see it on the till tape. In Slovakia, as far as I could sort out, virtually everything had VAT with several different rates. When I shopped at Tesco, my till tape told me exactly how much tax - and at which rates - was included in the prices I saw on the shelves.