Child Care Money About To Get Taxed

[Matt]

Anyways, I heard about this through an email, and found a bit about this on the Liberal Party in BC's website, www.teambc.ca. I know it would be biased, but I still think the article's quite interesting.

 

Warning to parents: it's going to cost you!

 

Attention all parents with children under the age of six:

Have you seen one of these forms arrive in your mailbox?

 

 

February 12, 2007

 

Canada's Neo-Conservative Government has very quietly mailed out an innocuous sounding "RC62" tax form to over a million families this week. What they didn't tell Canadians is that it is more like a tax bill - and they'd better start saving now because they owe Stephen Harper big money. They owe all of the back taxes on their monthly child care cheques . all at once!

 

"With Tory cuts forcing daycares to hike their fees, or shut down all together, the last thing parents need is a huge tax bill. Many families who were relying on a tax refund this year will be shocked to learn they now owe Stephen Harper a ton of cash," said Blair Wilson the Member of Parliament for West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast -Sea to Sky Country.

 

Box 10 of the form corresponds to the amount of money each family has received over the past year from Mr. Harper's ill-considered child care scheme. If a family has one eligible child the total in Box 10 will read $600 - if they have two young children will read $1200, and so on. This is "income" they have already received and likely already spent on child care or other family expenses.

 

"But now these families have to try and come up with hundreds and hundreds of dollars all at once to pay for Mr. Harper's political stunt. Any sensible government would have taxed this money at source before it was mailed out.but would a $65 dollar a month cheque gotten Mr. Harper any headlines?" asked Wilson.

 

Now ordinary families will have to pay big for Mr. Harper's election-time stunt. And this year's benefit has only been in effect for six months. Next year families are going to have to come up with twice as much. This whole plan has been a disaster from day one - and it hasn't even created a single new child care space.

 

Blair Wilson is the Chair of the BC Caucus of the Liberal Party of Canada. He was first elected as the Member of Parliament for West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea to Sky Country in 2006.

 

Visit Blair online at www.blairwilson.ca

[Crusader]

Free money!*

 

Saw that one coming. Enjoy saving a dollar on your taxes.

[Matt]

I find it terribly ironic that people complained about how the Liberal sceme didn't work because it was only for child care space, and so the Tory's re-directed the money to people and now they are taxing it quite heavily as well from the looks of it too.

[supercanuk]

Thats the whole neo-conservative myth. Ride on a platform of reduction in taxes ( which often amounts to just shift taxes from GST to PST) and the real tax breaks go to the top 1% of the population. They sure do keep their promises ;) lol

[Moonlight_Graham]

Well, most money you receive/earn is taxed. If you are unemployed or disabled & you receive EI or disability pension it counts as "income" & you are taxed for it. So this isn't suprising to me.

 

This is weird because you are taxing money that is paid for by taxes. So you're taxing taxes & that money will just go back to into the big tax coffers. huh?

 

rant: Taxes in Canada are crazy. If you make a modest wage, then the gov't takes about 20% off your paycheck right away for Employment Insurance & Pension. Then when u go to buy most anything u pay GST/PST, so thats another 14% off your paycheck = 34%. Then u gotta pay income tax at the end of the year, so there's more $$$ gone. Then if u have a house you gotta pay property taxes & shit etc. etc. etc.

 

I don't know the exact #'s but at the end of the day most Canadians give the gov't close to 50% of their paycheck to the gov't. If you make good money you are fucked even more. I'm waiting for the gov't to clamp a meter on my ass so i have to pay taxes every time i fart.

Edited February 14, 2007 by Moonlight_Graham

[Matt]

Yeah, but they didn't announce that they were going to do this, it's just it's well silly. And for the GST, I remember they lowered it and then raised the income tax so, I believe people who pay it, now actually lose all the savings from the GST reduction and have to pay an extra $13 minus the money saved from the GST a year on top of that in income tax. This government seems to be taxing people more than the Liberal government did...

Edited February 14, 2007 by Matt

[Moonlight_Graham]

Yes they should have said they were going to tax when they announced the program. Not sure if they did or not since i'm not privy on the details. But i guess according to the Liberals they didn't.

 

We'll see what happens about taxes in the next budget. I don't mind paying taxes, as long as the money is being spent on the right things & isn't being wasted. The Liberals were getting quite wasteful in the latter years of their last run, bit i think that is natural for a party who has been in power a long time. They become complacent.

 

I think the change of gov't is healthy for both the country & the Liberal Party. I know u are a big Liberal guy, & i'd like nothing better than to feel confident casting my vote for the Liberals since they are closer to me on the poltical spectrum than the Cons. Hopefully the Libs will be cleaned up for the next election, but im not getting my hopes up.

[Matt]

It's not about being a Liberal, and I used to be a Conservative, but I don't like their new brand of politics. It's just bad for the country. I think the Tories are pushing for a return to a world that quite frankly doesn't exist anymore, self-reliance and close ties with the Americans.

[juanpe]

typical attitude from very conservative governments...

[no yu begin wher i end]

This seems kinda...um...evil...

[Moonlight_Graham]

Yeah, but they didn't announce that they were going to do this, it's just it's well silly.

Incorrect. I was asking my dad about some income tax questions, what was taxable & not taxable etc. I brought up the child care benefits. He said "yeah, those are taxable income too". I asked him if this was just recently announced (as this thread suggests). My dad told me no the gov't said the money was counted as taxable income back when they Cons first announced this new Universal Child Care program.

 

I had 2 opinions to this argument now, so i looked it up and right on the Universal Child Care Benefit FAQ on the Revenue Agency website where u apply it tells you that the benefits are indeed counted as taxable income that u will need to report it at the end of the year. link: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/benefits/uccb/tax-e.html#q1

 

My take on this is that the gov't probably should have taken the taxes off the top right when u get the cheques instead of taxing it later (for convienince-sake). But its typical politics, the Cons get a boost because people like getting the bigger cheques in the mail. For those that are suprised to be getting the tax form in the mail, well they should have read everything more carefully when they applied.

[Matt]

Did the Tories, when they make the announcment at least often say "hey, this is going to get taxed!" though.

[Moonlight_Graham]

No of course not. But not sure any other party would act much differently. Typical poltical manuevering, trying to make something look better than it is. pfft.

[juanpe]

Typical poltical manuevering, trying to make something look better than it is.

exactly... that is what that looks like