I am a retired accountant and I recall being advised many years ago that "numbers never lie but liars always figure" and I can see that aphorism expressed in your analysis.
Clearly, clearly, we are seeing vastly increased money being expended - oh, sorry, I mean "invested" [absolutely NOT an investment!] - and head count immensely increased. At the same time, the quality of services as measured in time to accomplish something (anyone for a passport?) or for someone to even bother to try to accomplish anything (care to try to chase down the billions sent out erroneously during COVID?) is "problematic" - being excruciatingly and stupidly polite.
My point is that your figures prove again that no matter the excuses from governments, particularly our current federal overlords, the liars continue to "figure."
I was interested to see the growth in numbers of employees at CRA and ESDC. Add to that, on the tax side, all those in the private sector who labour as tax lawyers and accountants. Are there any researchers modelling a radically different, less Byzantine and ornate, taxation model? One that would less costly to administer?
As to ESDC, would a basic annual income or some combination of other policies ease the process of redistributing resources.
I am happy to pay taxes. I think we are privileged to be taxed and to have tax dollars directed to defence and diplomacy, roads and rails, education, health and income support.
I'm sure I've seen analyses of the social and economic costs of insanely complicated tax systems - and they're not cheap. But I'm not sure the primary driver of CRA employment bloat is complex tax law. My guess is that a lot of the recent growth has been the result of internal HR decisions.
But I'm definitely all-in on simplifying the tax code.
Where in the world would you find independent people capable of doing the analysis of our tax system to either rule in or rule out a vast simplification exercise.
Simplifying Canada's tax code could lead to significant economic savings by reducing both compliance and administrative costs. A 2023 Fraser Institute study focused on personal income tax compliance costs, estimating that Canadians incurred about $4.2 billion in such costs for the 2022 tax year, equating to 0.15% of GDP.
Well, not at the minute because it is considered as something too hard to understand and not possible to change. Perhaps if people understood how much it costs each family and the country as a whole in direct and opportunity costs to support such an unnecessarily complex system, there would be more interest in changing it.
I can't remember. It probably involved a lot of estimating. But I would imagine that a good place to begin would be with compliance: cut personal and corporate payments to tax accountants and tax lawyers by 75% and you won't go too far wrong.
Frank Stronach (Magna) had a great idea for tax reform. The main thrust of it was to assess income tax for large corporations based on their sales, rather than their income. This would make the process very simple and virtually impossible to cheat. It would eliminate the gaming of the system by international companies that are choosing where to shuffle their corporate expenses to minimize taxes, it would force taxes on clever corporate cheats like Amazon who's owners don't pay dividends to themselves preferring to hoard their money (and yours, if you're an investor) inside the corporation until they can take it out at preferrable tax rates under the capital gains rules, and it would make absurd executive salaries part of economic competition, rather than a tax deduction, by taxing the fullness of these costs to the corporation rather than a tax on consumers through inflated prices and of course the added benefit of simplicity to administer, requiring far less government, and many other benefits.
I am a retired accountant and I recall being advised many years ago that "numbers never lie but liars always figure" and I can see that aphorism expressed in your analysis.
Clearly, clearly, we are seeing vastly increased money being expended - oh, sorry, I mean "invested" [absolutely NOT an investment!] - and head count immensely increased. At the same time, the quality of services as measured in time to accomplish something (anyone for a passport?) or for someone to even bother to try to accomplish anything (care to try to chase down the billions sent out erroneously during COVID?) is "problematic" - being excruciatingly and stupidly polite.
My point is that your figures prove again that no matter the excuses from governments, particularly our current federal overlords, the liars continue to "figure."
I was interested to see the growth in numbers of employees at CRA and ESDC. Add to that, on the tax side, all those in the private sector who labour as tax lawyers and accountants. Are there any researchers modelling a radically different, less Byzantine and ornate, taxation model? One that would less costly to administer?
As to ESDC, would a basic annual income or some combination of other policies ease the process of redistributing resources.
I am happy to pay taxes. I think we are privileged to be taxed and to have tax dollars directed to defence and diplomacy, roads and rails, education, health and income support.
I'm sure I've seen analyses of the social and economic costs of insanely complicated tax systems - and they're not cheap. But I'm not sure the primary driver of CRA employment bloat is complex tax law. My guess is that a lot of the recent growth has been the result of internal HR decisions.
But I'm definitely all-in on simplifying the tax code.
Where in the world would you find independent people capable of doing the analysis of our tax system to either rule in or rule out a vast simplification exercise.
Hang on. ChatGPT gave me the answer:
Simplifying Canada's tax code could lead to significant economic savings by reducing both compliance and administrative costs. A 2023 Fraser Institute study focused on personal income tax compliance costs, estimating that Canadians incurred about $4.2 billion in such costs for the 2022 tax year, equating to 0.15% of GDP.
Sadly no strong political will to reform the tax code
Well, not at the minute because it is considered as something too hard to understand and not possible to change. Perhaps if people understood how much it costs each family and the country as a whole in direct and opportunity costs to support such an unnecessarily complex system, there would be more interest in changing it.
Tax lobby enjoys the status quo like in the USA so not likely
Ok then! So how do we get from “here to there.”
I wish I knew. I guess it wouldn't hurt if more people read The Audit. :)
I can't remember. It probably involved a lot of estimating. But I would imagine that a good place to begin would be with compliance: cut personal and corporate payments to tax accountants and tax lawyers by 75% and you won't go too far wrong.
Frank Stronach (Magna) had a great idea for tax reform. The main thrust of it was to assess income tax for large corporations based on their sales, rather than their income. This would make the process very simple and virtually impossible to cheat. It would eliminate the gaming of the system by international companies that are choosing where to shuffle their corporate expenses to minimize taxes, it would force taxes on clever corporate cheats like Amazon who's owners don't pay dividends to themselves preferring to hoard their money (and yours, if you're an investor) inside the corporation until they can take it out at preferrable tax rates under the capital gains rules, and it would make absurd executive salaries part of economic competition, rather than a tax deduction, by taxing the fullness of these costs to the corporation rather than a tax on consumers through inflated prices and of course the added benefit of simplicity to administer, requiring far less government, and many other benefits.
Thank you for digging that up.
To conclude above: I do wonder if there are vastly simpler ways to do so.