Fredericton — Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has some great ideas on how to grow the middle class in Canada, chief among them involving closing tax “loopholes” that allow small businesses — also known as the middle class — to exist at all.
“The problem with small businesses is that they have too many tax breaks, and breaks in general,” said Morneau. “No, most of these people don’t have health insurance, overtime, maternity leave, paid sick days, paid vacation, consistent paycheques, any kind of pension, any stock options to speak of, any financial security, and it costs them thousands just to file their taxes, but what if one of them were to cheat the system by getting E.I. benefits? I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. So to prevent their getting ahead, some sweeping tax changes are coming down the pipe.”
Locally, Fredericton Liberal MP Matt DeCourcey was unavailable for comment as he was busy organizing ice-cream socials at seniors’ homes and printing up thousands of gigantic, poorly designed fliers to mail out to constituents who immediately throw them in the trash. It is possible he has written about the proposed tax changes in a recent mailout, but we already threw ours in the garbage and dumped coffee grounds and banana peels on top of them.
CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce Krista Ross, however, spoke vehemently against this loophole-closing, saying that it’s going to force small businesses — the backbone of the community — out of existence.
“One of the changes is intended to prevent what Morneau calls ‘income sprinkling,’ which allows business owners to disperse money to family members who earn less. But most small ventures rely on their relatives to run these inter-generational businesses,” she explained. “Do we really want to destroy these pillars of our community? Because that’s what’s going to happen.”
John Ruskins owns a business on Hanwell Road that has been in his family for four generations. “If my investment income is going to be taxed at 70 per cent — think of it, 70!! — we’ll have no savings for a rainy day or an emergency because the government’s going to take it all and hand it over to the Irvings,” mourned Ruskins.
“I’ll be forced to shut down. My son is being groomed to take over, but now he’s gonna have to go work at Costco I guess. I s’pose that’s what Trudeau thinks is fair.”
Local moron Todd Swanson, who is employed by a large company and has a complete set of benefits as well as paid vacation, a sizable pension contribution from his employer, and a big-ass company truck, is excited about the news.
“Good — this’ll level the playing field. A lot of these family businesses just want to milk the system for E.I.,” said the man who has claimed E.I. multiple times. “I’m sick and tired of working my ass off to support liars.”
In protest, many entrepreneurs, including Ruskin, have decided to burn down their family businesses to cash out now on their insurance policies.
“It’s the only way I see out of this mess,” said Ruskin. “May’swell just torch the thing and start a new life somewhere else.”
NOT funny! You sound exactly like many right wing radio station talk shows who are quite serious. Very wealthy Doctors for example unfairly benefit from this loophole. One has to be quite wealthy to benefit from the specific measures that the government intends to reign in, as they had promised to do.
Wealthy doctors and other professionals, with all their education, getting paid. Imagine that. Trudeau might as well be taxing education along with those willing to take risks to make money. Not fair.
Lame!
Small business owners always have “me me me attitude”. It’s time to shut them all down.