Taxation and the middle class

[Acitta]

I might be wrong, but there are a ton of tax loopholes rich people use so no matter how much tax they owe, they'll find a way to get around it and not pay. We obviously need to fix the system but that seems unrealistic atm

There really aren't a ton of them. It's possible to lower the amount of taxes paid in many ways and possible to avoid some entirely, but it's not an easy thing to do. It's also precarious legally, so most people out there are not going to opt to do something that could result in having money taken away or face prosecution for. People in general just do not really like having to have their money be taxed. Every person out there looks at their finances, gets to the Tax and Deductions sections and sighs.

But contrary to the fact that there are countless economic philosophies that exist in human culture and people will develop their own views of what they see as ideal, we are all more or less constantly forced to participate in whatever system exists in our state by being held in bondage under the threat of force and/or violence should you attempt to not play by the rules of the state you reside in (with the concept of a state itself already being a complete abstraction as well). A state can't exist without taxation, so they've developed pretty good ways to ensure people do not find ways to not pay their fare share. There are very few actual loopholes remaining that make it easy these days. Most wealthy people are just wealthy because they have financial literacy, not because they're using tax loopholes or perhaps other schemes. If they'll chase someone down for years for owing say 1500 dollars, you can be assured the CRA does everything they can to chase down people with even money who may be dodging taxes or something.

If the issue is whether we should tax them more, well, that's a different issue. On that, I'd argue the government should learn what the hell they're doing with the tax they already do get. There is an insane amount of waste. There is also a lot of questionable reasoning to what they choose to tax. One example is the carbon tax is one contentious issue in Canadian society for some years now with all sides providing scientific, economic and political views both in support and against said tax. Whatever the case, a lot of our money we end up giving them isn't being spent too well whether it's at the local, provincial or federal levels. They should be fixing that to optimize what they currently have before seeking to take more.

Conservatives are always claiming that there is a lot of waste and taxes are too high. What they end up doing is cutting taxes for their rich friends and cutting social services like health care for the rest of us. They never want to cut the huge subsidies for oil companies, which is where the real waste is.