this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Canada has no excuse left: it’s time for a wealth tax (canadiandimension.com)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/canada
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This Black History Month, it’s important to recognize that economic injustice—both in Canada and around the world—is deeply rooted in racism. The property system in Canada was founded on the forced displacement and exclusion of Indigenous peoples from their land and immigration policies that prevented non-white immigration, effectively barring many thousands of people from accessing property in Canada. These racialized colonial systems laid the foundation for the current racial wealth gap, where racialized Canadians have about half as much wealth as their non-racialized counterparts.

Unlike the United States, where constitutional barriers have historically shielded the ultra-rich from direct taxation, Canada faces no such constitutional legal obstacles—only political ones. And those political excuses are running out.

A wealth tax enjoys overwhelming public support. Nearly 90 percent of Canadians back it, yet successive Liberal and Conservative governments have refused to act. Their refusal isn’t due to legal constraints but to the immense influence of corporate lobbyists and billionaire donors who oppose any effort to make them pay their fair share.

Just last year, powerful corporate interests mobilized to kill a progressive tax measure that would have primarily targeted Canada’s wealthiest citizens and corporations: the partial closure of the capital gains loophole.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

(not op) I'm against a wealth tax, but what you mentioned is a serious problem that does need to be fixed.

The best I've come up with is taxing use of collatorlized assets. Are you a founder in a company that went public and you have a lot of money in stock? Great, well done! Oh, you want to buy a house without selling any of that stock and take out a loan against that stock, that you don't pay back for decades or until you die by simply adding more collateral? Tax that. Don't let them use it indirectly without taxing it. If they repay the collateralized loan, let them get a refund and tax however that gets paid back. They have the money to make sure all the paper work is handled correctly.

I'm sure there's other tricks that would need to be addressed, but it should be doable without a blanket tax on unrealized gains.

Edit: also let the tax agencies investigate the lavish lifestyles and have them show how they are paying for things, and when it ultimately comes to this or other ways, tax that. Short of offsetting their yearly spend with donations to charity, tax it. Don't let this $0 income/capital gains shit continue through trickery.

[–] Kelsenellenelvial 1 points 1 day ago

I’m not sure how effective it is, but it seems like CRA has been tightening up on some kinds of business expenses, or at least my previous employer interpreted it that way. When people have things like company vehicles or phones, or get comparable benefits from work the value of those things being used for non-work related purposes is taxable. That’s also why there’s standards for things like mileage or per-diems so people can be compensated for realistic expenses, but not use it as a way to avoid income taxes.

We should also be careful about how we close some “loopholes”. Like it makes sense that a person can mortgage their personal property and use that to fund their business. It also makes sense that they can claim the interest on that mortgage as a tax deduction since it’s kind of a business related expense. It feels different when someone with a net worth less than a million does that compared to someone worth more than a billion, so I don’t think it’s closing the loophole altogether but putting limits like only claiming interest on something like $300k of debt (or something close to the average amount owed on a home of an average valuation).

I’ll also add that the idea behind reduced taxation on capital gains is it encourages people to invest in businesses and grow the economy. That makes sense economically. Canada also does better than some places(USA) in this way because capital gains are considered realized and paid on death so there’s not really a way to avoid them altogether, at best you’re putting it off for 60ish years. We also have things like the TFSA, which allows us to invest without being subject to capital gains tax. A person able to max out their RRSP/TFSA/CPP contributions would have a very comfortable retirement, while people earning significantly more have more limited options in deferring/eliminating their tax burden.

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

This is one of those problems where I don't really care about the exact nature of the solution, just that it's addressed. Individuals hoarding wealth and power to the detriment of society is bullshit.

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

I don't really care about the exact nature of the solution

The issue that people who hate the solution got a bunch of useful idiots mobilized to fight their for them along the left/right circle jerk axis.