APPEALS TO REASON ..

APPEALS TO REASON – Part 17
A series of letters and E-mail messages from Canadian victims
of taxes on phantom income to Canadian Government Authorities, at all levels,
appealing for fair treatment and the, often idiotic, replies they received.

Read: Appeals to Reason Part – 1 (preamble) & Parts – 2, to 16 for more background information.
By Victor Drummond ©
May 2009

Synopsis of the events to the present

Part 12 Provides excerpts from the Hon. Mr. Flaherty’s speech to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, where he preaches “Tax Fairness” for all Canadians but ignores all appeals from victims of Canada’s unfair policy of taxing phantom income. Thereby earning himself the title my maternal Mennonite grandmother applied to straight face prevaricators e.g. Flannel Mouth.

Part 12 Also reports on the creation and evolution of the group of grass-roots Canadians named: “Canadians for Fair and Equitable Taxation” (CFET).

Part 15 Now discover more about the things members of CFET have done, and are doing, to inspire the Canadian government to live up to it’s promise(s) of fair taxation and equal treatment under the law.

A letter from the Honourable Gordon O’Connor to his colleague the Honourable John Baird reveals which victims of taxes levied on phantom income are eligible to apply for tax remission and which victims are not.

Part 16 See how “Canada’s Fair Taxation Plan” falls far short of actually being even close to “Fair”.
What was the government strategy when they introduced the T1212 tax deferment option – See below

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In the year 2000 Canada’s Liberal Government was up to its ears in scandal and needed a lot of taxpayer’s money to finance a number of under the table operations.

The recently exposed flaw in the taxable benefits legislation brought to the surface by the High-Tech stock market crash, involved hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars.

If the draft budget prepared by the Honourable Paul Martin, Minister of Finance, were to actually cancel the imposition of taxes on phantom income then the tax income to the Federal Government (Accts Receivable) would decline by hundreds of millions of dollars.

But if these unfair tax levies were to be merely deferred and the victimized taxpayer forced to hold on to the related equities then all would be well so far as the CRA was concerned. These deferred taxes would then remain on the CRA accounts receivable.

Then all that was needed to make the whole scam acceptable would be for the stock market to do what it usually does, after a short term crash, e.g. make a full recovery and resume the boom mode of operation.

Had the stock market resumed boom mode operation then:

(1) The victimized taxpayer would be able to sell their prematurely taxed equities for enough money to pay the tax

and

(2) The government could leave the defective taxable benefit legislation intact to continue to scoop premature taxes based upon the phantom income of unwitting participants in their employer’s ESPP/ESO incentive reward programs.

This tactic may have worked, as intended; except for the fact the High-Tech stock market crash of the year 2000 wasn’t just a blip on the world financial radar screen. It was actually the opening salvo of a whole series of market declines and world-wide economic disasters.

By the time the 2006 Federal Election arrived the Liberal government, financial authorities, realized the world economic problems were not short term and their failure to properly correct the phantom tax problem had now painted them into a bit of a corner.

Many victimized Canadian taxpayers who were barely existing under financial duress, with horrendous deferred tax debts, soon had even greater problems due to becoming unemployed when their employer was required to downsize or even go right out of business.

To add insult to injury some victims were also facing cancellation of their tax deferment due to their former employer corporation being bought out or just plain closing their doors.

Although time would reveal the Federal Conservative Party was not really up to the job of keeping their pre-election promises of “fair taxation” the at the time of the 2006 federal election the Canadian voting public were becoming disillusioned with the Federal Liberal Party performance.

So when it came time for a Federal Election most Canadians were ready for a change of government.

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The foregoing explanation is the one that makes the most sense to me as to why the Liberal Government, under Prime Minister Paul Martin fumbled around pretending to apply corrective action to provide “fair taxation” for Canadians victimized by the defective taxable legislation and the CRA policy of applying that legislation. If there is a better explanation I would love to hear it.

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The Conservative 2006 pre-election campaign included such lofty slogans as: “STAND UP FOR CANADA” and election platform promises such as: “reduced taxation”, “fair taxation” etc.

The Canadian voting public “STOOD UP FOR CANADA” in that election and the Federal Conservative Party formed the next government.

And true to part of their pre-election promise the Conservative government provided “reduced taxes” for most Canadians and “fair taxation” for 37 former employees of the defunct SDL Optics Inc. Corporation in the riding of the Hon. Gary Lunn, Saanich Gulf Islands British Columbia via an exclusive Tax Remission Order (TRO).

Although the issued TRO to provided “fair taxation” for the 37 people named in the order it did just the opposite for the thousands of Canadian taxpayers who were also taxed on money they never saw but were excluded from the benefits provided by the Gary Lunn TRO.

That small oversight meant the pre-election promise of “fair taxation" was still a pipe dream for the vast majority of Canadians victimized with taxes still standing and levied on money they never saw.

The party that was elected on the slogan: “STAND UP FOR CANADA” sat down when it came time to “STAND UP FOR TAX ABUSED CANADIANS”.

Although the United States government has amended their comparable defective tax legislation, e.g. the “Alternative Minimum Tax” (AMT) laws, thereby putting an end to taxing phantom income in the U.S.A.

(Ref: www.fair-iso.org and www.reformAMT.org ), this atrocious practice is still on-going in Canada.

The U.S. government took this proper and decent action in October 2008 at a time when the U.S. economy was, and still is, in much worse condition than Canada’s.

The world economic downturn is still on-going, with no end in sight, and the longer the Canadian Government delays properly correcting this outrageous tax policy the greater the cost will be to compensate those who have been, and are still are, being victimized and the longer Canadian victims will be obliged to endure this abuse.

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A visit to the Canadian Government web page: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/fairness/
would have you believe perfidious claims such as: “Revenue Agency (CRA), fairness and the promotion of taxpayers' rights have long been key goals. "We are committed to treating taxpayers fairly and to ensuring their rights are upheld through the CRA redress mechanisms.”

The “fairness” of taxing phantom income has been challenged hundreds of times, in the past year alone, and not one member of the Canadian government, CRA members included, have replied to the appellants that the challenged tax policy is “fair” and/or what basis of logic it can be“justified”.

Why not?

Because there is no possible logical rationale to support taxing honest, hard-working Canadians on money they did not actually receive. That is why.

Apart from the personal tragedy imposed upon thousands of honest, hard-working Canadians financially ruined by a greedy, callous and uncaring gang of “senior government bureaucrats” the real and greater tragedy is that an entire democratically elected parliament including the leaders of every federal political party: who are supposed to be representatives of the Canadian people, have (so far) failed to act on behalf of the people who elected them. They have totally ignored all manner of appeals for justice and fair treatment under the law.

Every member of Canada’s 39th and 40th parliament have been sent letters and/or e-mails informing them of the massive violation of government declared “right” to “fair” and “equal treatment under the law” so loudly proclaimed in the updated “Taxpayers Bill of Rights” BUT only one sitting member of Canada’s 40th parliament has put pen to paper to declare this is an atrocity that should be corrected.

Tell me! What good is a “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” and/or a: “Bill of Taxpayers Rights” when there is no provision to enforce these rights when they are violated, (by the very government that created them)?

AND FURTHERMORE

Tell me! What good is a democratically elected body of Cabinet and Parliamentary members that not only do not act upon reported violations of those “guaranteed rights” but by their failure to act to correct the problem, when so notified, become accessories to the injustice before, during and after the fact.

As said before: Any system of “fair taxation” that produces victims in mass numbers but requires victims to appeal their injustice individually is in itself inherently unfair.

In such a system some victims will receive favourable decisions and others will not: depending more on the whim of the person judging the appeal than on the merits of the victim’s case. (Auditor Generals report)

Also other victims that do not have the required documentation to launch an appeal are left out of the appeal process altogether.

Think about it. There is only one way for the Canadian Government to really fulfill the taxation rights to which they say all Canadians are entitled and that is to do what the United States Government has done to correct their phantom tax problem, e.g. correct the defective legislation that provides a basis for such an atrociously and unfair tax policy.

Ref: www.fair-iso.org and www.reformAMT.org and fairly compensate those who have been victimized by it.

Until Canada’s defective “taxable benefit legislation” has been amended to remove equities such as corporate shares and share purchase options, (no matter how they were acquired), from the “taxable benefit” classification and reclassify them to be what they actually are: “Capital Investments” there is no possible way the government can come even close to providing what they promised: “Fair and Equitable Taxation”.

Then do not tell me I have “rights” that my government, or anyone else, can violate with impunity, or that I have “rights” that I can only realize by hiring a lawyer and fighting the system to have those “rights” honoured. Those are “rights” that are only applicable to the wealthy and well connected.

I can not imagine anything more useless than “rights” that no one will enforce when they have been proven to have been violated. Can you?

Victor Drummond ©

APPEALS TO REASON ..

APPEALS TO REASON – Part 14
A series of letters and E-mail messages from Canadian victims
of taxes on phantom income to Canadian Government Authorities, at all levels,
appealing for fair treatment and the, often idiotic, replies they received.

Read: Appeals To Reason Part – 1 (preamble) & Parts – 2, to 13 for more background information.
By Victor Drummond ©
May 2009

Synopsis of the events to the present

Part 8: Excerpts from additional published articles that could explain what happened to disillusion former Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Carol Skelton and possibly the reason she decided not to run for office in the 2008 federal election.

Part 9: Letters to Carol Skelton from other Members of Canada’s 39th Parliament pressuring her to take action to have all Canadian victims of phantom income tax treated fairly.

Part 9 closes part way through reporting on the events following the announcement on May 28 2007 by the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue and the Honourable James Flaherty, Minister of Finance, of two new government initiatives proclaimed to bring fair taxation to all Canadians.

Part 10 Reveals a possible reason why both Prime Minister Paul Martin and Prime Minister Stephen Harper reneged on their public commitments to “fix” and/or “resolve” the phantom Income tax fiasco.

Part 11 Reveals a sample of letters being sent to the Hon Jim Flaherty describing the distress being caused to honest, hard-working Canadians by the defective taxable benefit legislation and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) policy in applying that legislation to tax phantom income.

Part 12 Provides excerpts from the Hon. Mr. Flaherty’s speech to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, where he preaches “Tax Fairness” for all Canadians but ignores all appeals from victims of Canada’s unfair policy of taxing phantom income. Thereby earning himself the title my maternal Mennonite grandmother applied to straight face prevaricators e.g. Flannel Mouth.

Part 12 Also reports on the creation and evolution of the group of grass-roots Canadians named: “Canadians for Fair and Equitable Taxation” (CFET).

Now find out some of the things members of CFET have done, and are doing to inspire the Canadian government to live up to it’s promise(s) of fair taxation and equal treatment under the law.

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When it became apparent the Canadian Government was merely paying lip service to “fair taxation” and were totally ignoring appeals, by Canadians financially devastated by being levied horrendous taxes on income that never existed, CFET members began looking for other ways to nudge the government to honour their “fair taxation” promises.

For example I discovered an article in the February, 2006, issue of the Readers Digest that told of the growing practice of internet users to express themselves in the field of blogging. The article was titled: “Are you blogging yet?” by author Tom Hawthorne.

Although the concept of blogging was totally foreign to me I began searching the internet for active blogger’s and blogger web pages. I came across a blogger web site with the title: “Blogscanada.com” containing a sub-group of bloggers’ with the title: “E-Group” specializing in political punditry.

It looked like the ideal place to try my hand at blogging: especially with the e-group web page inviting submissions from newbie bloggers. One of the named E-group administrators was (is) a gentleman named Jim Elve.

I sent an e-mail to Mr. Elve inquiring about submitting articles and whether or not a pen-name could be used when submitting items for posting. Mr. Elve was most accommodating and I began submitting articles under the pen-name “Victor Drummond”.

A Google search today will bring up one or two of the earliest articles by Victor Drummond that were posted on the blogscanada.com, e-group web pages. (1) “The Cat and the Rare Stamp” March 25, 2007
and (2) “Famous Lines – Who said that?”, April 2, 2007 -- for example.

Jim Elve soon became aware the Victor Drummond articles were not a good fit with the theme of the E-Group blogger web page and he very diplomatically, and politely suggested Victor Drummond articles would have more impact if posted on a new blogger web site dedicated to the CFET objective of fair taxation.

Consequently on April 24, 2007 a blog site titled: buyerbeware—caveatemptor.blogspot.com was created with the first entry being an “Introductory Mandate” and the very first article titled: “Income Tax versus Opportunity Tax” was posted.

Being a complete novice to the field of blogging I wasn’t sure how to set up the blog site options and how to enable reader’s comments. It took several months to gain some experience and apply some of the more common reader options to the web page.

Also I was initially rather disappointed at the low level of reader’s feedback.

Comments to Victor Drummond posted articles were few and far between and because the blogspot.com web pages do not provide a hit counter I couldn’t even determine how many readers had actually visited the articles posted.

I set a goal for myself of posting articles twice a week . Articles were to be posted on a Sunday and on a Wednesday whenever conditions allowed. By mid April 2009, approximately two years after the first posting, I had posted a total of: 163 articles.

Because I had been raised in a family that cherished and practiced truth, honesty, decency and integrity I naively believed those who governed Canada had at least a few of these same qualities.

Consequently my initial posted articles were abstract stories with rationales designed to expose the unfair aspects of taxing Canadians on money they had never received. (Phantom Income)

Believe it or not I actually expected a mild nudge or two would: (a) produce spontaneous government action to rectify the situation and/or (b) the voting public would speak up and demand their elected representatives take corrective action as soon as they realized their "RIGHTS" to fair taxation are being violated.

As you can see neither event (1) or (2) has taken place to date. I would like to believe, however, my articles exhorting voting age Canadians to demand representation of their candidates for election to Canada’s Parliament, or no vote, had some bearing on the historically low voter turn out in the 2008 federal election.

It turned out the federal political party that campaigned for election on the platform of: providing “reduced and fair taxation” and using the slogan: “STAND UP FOR CANADA" when elected in the 2006 federal election did not provide the promised fair taxation and they "DID NOT STAND UP FOR ABUSED CANADIANS" who voted them into office and who are still being victimized via the unjustified, unfair phantom tax legislation and the CRA application policy.

By the time Veterans’ Day, 2008 arrived I had been thoroughly disillusioned and now realized what a perfidious collection of federal politicians Canada had inherited.

It was cause for me to wonder why the voting rights of convicted felons were being upheld by opening voting polls inside prison walls and just what personal qualities a felon would support in their choice of candidate.

Perhaps that might explain how Canada became governed by people of low integrity, lack of honesty, and zero compassion for those they choose to victimize. For example a government minster who made grand speeches promising fairness but who then used his political power to make sure it didn’t happen.

Not one member of Canada’s 39th parliament has acknowledged the travesty of justice being imposed on honest, hard-working Canadians that were, and still are, being legally robbed of their life’s savings on the pretext the government is entitled to tax potential but nonexistent income.

I then expressed my profound disappointment in Canada’s government by posting the year 2007 Veteran’s Day article: “Canada Remembers and So do I.” By this time, however I no longer expected anyone to care, or comment, or do anything about it. And this time I was right.

On Veteran’s day 2008, I posted a similar article entitled: ‘When My Country Called – I responded”

Again there was no feedback.

Not one civilian or Canadian veteran posted a comment and no action was taken by any Canadian Veteran’s organizations, such as the Royal Canadian Legion, or, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs.

Perhaps no one reads Victor Drummond postings -- but somehow I don’t think that is the answer.

It makes more sense to me that the deafening silence on this travesty of justice has more to do with concern for government reprisals by withholding funding than it does for lack of concern the average person has for the well-being of victimized Canadians.

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From its inception the CFET group has been, and even before then, victimized Canadians were, appealing to their elected members of Canada's Parliament for relief of the unjustified, outrageous, taxes being levied on them by reason of the defective taxable benefit legislation.

Following the creation of the CFET lobby group I began to receive copies of letters and e-mails exchanged between CFET members and all sorts of government authorities and even between victims and the media.

Most Canadians feel comfortable -- with having outspoken Newspaper journalists, Radio Talk-show commentators and the many Television commentators, such as Rex Murphy, Mike Duffy (formerly),and Public Service Documentary’s such as “The 5th Estate” and “W5” – watching over government wrong-doers.

I also had confidence that these stalwart examples of public service would jump at the opportunity to right any serious wrong-doing on the part of our elected representatives. That is until CFET members began requesting support from these social watchdogs. Not one has acknowledged these requests or taken any action to publicize the abuse of honest, hard-working Canadians.

Over the past two years no less than four requests were sent to the editors of the Readers Digest Canada asking for the RD to publish something in the classification of their series: “That’s Outrageous” publicizing the Canadian government levying finacially ruinous taxation on phantom income.

Three of those requests were totally ignored and the fourth was acknowledged by a junior member of the RD magazine who replied they were forwarding the request to the RD editorial board. Three months later CFET is still waiting for the editorial board’s reply.

Several requests for support were sent to Rex Murphy, and to Mike Duffy, prior to Mike’s Senate Appointment and although months have gone by there has been no response from either one.

An e-mail was sent to Canada’s Ethic’s Commissioner, months ago, complaining to the Commissioner of the unjust and unfair treatment of Canadian taxpayers by the Canadian Government.

To the credit of the Commissioners’ office staff a reply came back within a reasonable time explaining the mandate of the Commissioner was limited to monitoring and reporting upon the conduct of individual government members and did not extend to dealing with the ethical conduct of the government overall.

Several E-mails were exchanged between CFET members and the Canadian Federation of Taxpayers, Ottawa Division. Although the e-mails were acknowledged by an official of the Taxpayers Federation the response was very much limited to tea and sympathy.

Not one article, critical of the phantom tax issue, written by a Tax Federation member/author has yet been published -- to my knowledge.

There is much more to follow in the APPEALS TO REASON series so keep in touch.

Victor Drummond ©

APPEALS TO REASON ..

APPEALS TO REASON – Part 13
A series of letters and E-mail messages from Canadian victims
of taxes on phantom income to Canadian Government Authorities, at all levels,
appealing for fair treatment and the, often idiotic, replies they received.

Read: Appeals To Reason Part – 1 (preamble) & Parts – 2, to 12 for more background information.
By Victor Drummond ©
May 2009

Synopsis of the events to the present

Part 8: Excerpts from additional published articles that could explain what happened to disillusion former Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Carol Skelton and possibly the reason she decided not to run for office in the 2008 federal election.

Part 9: Letters to Carol Skelton from other Members of Canada’s 39th Parliament pressuring her to take action to have all Canadian victims of phantom income tax treated fairly.

Part 9 closes part way through reporting on the events following the announcement on May 28 2007 by the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue and the Honourable James Flaherty, Minister of Finance, of two new government initiatives proclaimed to bring fair taxation to all Canadians.

Part 10 Reveals a possible reason why both Prime Minister Paul Martin and Prime Minister Stephen Harper reneged on their public commitments to “fix” and/or “resolve” the phantom Income tax fiasco.

Part 11 Reveals a sample of letters being sent to the Hon Jim Flaherty describing the distress being caused to honest, hard-working Canadians by the defective taxable benefit legislation and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) policy in applying that legislation to tax phantom income.

Part 12 Provides excerpts from the Hon. Mr. Flaherty’s speech to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, where he preaches “Tax Fairness” for all Canadians while he continues to ignore all appeals from victims of Canada’s unfair policy of taxing phantom income. He thereby has earned himself the title my maternal Mennonite grandmother applied to straight face prevaricators e.g. Flannel Mouth.

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Questions:

(Q1) What is CFET?

Answer:

(A1) The acronym CFET stands for the name of a group of honest, hard-working Canadians who have been levied unjust and unfair taxes on “income” money they never saw.

The group name “Canadians for Fair and Equal Taxes” (CFET) first appeared on February 21 2008 at a “Press Conference” held in the Parliament Hill Press Theatre. The group name was soon thereafter upgraded to: “Canadians for Fair and Equitable Taxation” (CFET) which more accurately, reflected the group’s primary objectives.

(Q2) Where did the CFET members come from?

Answer:

(A2) Initially, there were only eight people that could be classed as members of CFET.
CFET began as of February 21, 2008 when seven members of the group first met face to face in Ottawa Ontario.

The first CFET member is tax victim Robert (Rob) Morse of Toronto Ontario. Rob could not attend the initial group meeting in Ottawa Ontario, as he was out of the country.

Rob did, however, provide an impact statement to be read at the CFET Press conference held in the Parliament Hill Press Theatre on that date.

The second member is Ken Thompson, of Brampton Ontario. Ken read Rob’s impact statement at the press conference.

CFET member number three is Mr. James Thompson, a victim of the tax on phantom income. James, (Jim), Thompson is from Ottawa Ontario.

Member number four is Kevin Hawe, a victim of phantom income taxation, from Victoria British Columbia who arrived with member number five, his father Gary Hawe, from Cobble Hill, a small town on Vancouver Island British Columbia.

Member number six is Mr. Ragui Kamel, a tax victim from Ottawa Ontario.

Member number seven is Mr. Ron Vader, also a phantom income tax victim, from Ottawa Ontario.

Last, but far from least, is CFET member number eight: Carolyn Jarvis, another phantom income tax victim from Ottawa Ontario.

(Q3) How did these initial eight victims, and victim supporters, find each other?

Answer:

(A3) In January 2007, when newspaper articles began to reveal the existence of an exclusive TRO for the SDL Optics/JDSU employee victims Mr. Rob Morse contacted one of the author journalists requesting that any other persons contacting this journalist, about the same article, be given Rob’s name, address, phone number and/or e-mail address.

Ken Thompson was among the first people to contact the journalist and then to contact Rob Morse.

Through the same connection the other above named members of CFET found each other and a press conference was arranged to be held, in the Parliament Hill Press Theatre, as mentioned above.

The Parliament Hill Press Conference was a dismal failure so far as, getting nation wide publicity for the CFET group and, their objective to help the Canadian government make good on their election commitments to provide all Canadians with “fair” taxation.

In spite of CFET’s preparation of Press Kits, with fair tax objectives clearly defined and complete with several tax victims’ impact statements, not one word about this meeting ever appeared in a Canadian Newspaper.

Had it not been for John Robson, producer of a closed circuit television program named: “Its your Government” (IYG) who had a cameraman taking videos at that meeting, there wouldn’t even be an inkling hint, to the public, the initial CFET meeting ever took place.

Producer J. Robson actually fitted in a brief clip from the CFET Press Conference meeting into the IYG program named: “I’ve got a secret.” The video clip didn’t put the CFET purpose, or objectives across but it did show the CFET Members in attendance.

This rather unproductive first meeting of CFET members did have one very positive result, i.e. They got to meet one another and reinforce each other’s determination to see fair taxation a reality for all victimized Canadians.

Shortly after the February 21 2007 CFET meeting members the group produced their own internet web site, i.e. www.cfet.ca complete with a petition for visitors to sign and links to victim’s impact statements, and to related newspaper articles.

The CFET web pages have been upgraded a few times and now there is a link to:- “Sign out Petition” that opens a window with the tab: “Signatures” which in turn opens a page where visitors, victims and supporters can sign their name and post a comment. A person can sign on as “Anonymous” if they prefer and leave a comment, or just read the comments already posted.

As of Good Friday 2009 there were some 334 signers to the CFET Petition with more added almost daily.

The original eight CFET membership has doubled and redoubled several times and new members are being added steadily.

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From it’s inception CFET has been active in many areas of Canadian Political structure and have supported both those Canadians that have been unjustly taxed, and the few members of Canada’s government that support fair taxation, to wage a campaign to truly bring about fair and equalized taxation to all Canadians.

CFET is a nonprofit, social group, that offers free membership to all Canadians, whether actual victims of taxation on phantom income or, supporters of fair and just taxation for all Canadians.

Among the initial eight CFET members were two that had tried the Canadian Court System to obtain justice and fair taxation.

They both found that because the taxable benefit legislation gives the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) the legal right to levy taxes on equities, (shares/options), that have been acquired via employers’ incentive reward plans known as: ESPP’s and/or ESO’s they ended up paying large legal bills and having their appeals denied. The courts were of no help and the bottom line was they were sending good money after bad.

Question (4) Why were the appeals of the two victimized CFET members not upheld by the Canadian Courts of Justice?

Answer (4) Until Canada’s defective taxable benefit legislation is “fixed/resolved” the Canadian court system is of no help to victimized Canadians. The courts merely rule that no laws have been broken and therefore the victims have no basis for an appeal.

The “Tax Court of Canada” mandate states that financial distress caused to Canadians by reason of taxes levied, can be taken into account.

If the justice ‘hearing a tax appeal’ feels like revoking the taxes levied he/she can so rule. This, however, is a very hit and miss form of justice and only works to add to the overall system unfairness as not all victimized taxpayers are treated equally.

Those appellants that were prudent and set money aside had little chance of having their appeal upheld while the opposite is true for those who spent their last Looney.

That is why the focus of the CFET group is for having Canada’s defective taxable benefit legislation amended to put an end to taxing all honest, hard-working Canadian’s on so called “Earned Income” that was neither “earned” nor “income” of any kind, e.g. phantom income.

Question (5) What has the CFET group done to achieve “Fair and Equitable Taxation”?

Answer (5) Shortly after the CFET group was formed on February 21, 2008 a founding member, Ragui Kamel, managed to be a guest commentator on a closed circuit TV program named:- “Alec Saunders Squawk Box”.

As a courtesy to Ragui Kamel, who had participated in several previous “Squawk Box” programs, Alec Saunders produced a special Edition on April 7, 2008, with the title: “Fair Taxation of Stock Options in Canada” with Mr. Kamel as the featured guest speaker.

Interested readers may listen to the podcast and read the comments posted by visiting web page:- http://saunderslog.com/2008/04/04/squawk-box-special-edition-fair-taxation-of-stock-options-in-canada/

There are many actions taken by individual Canadian victims of phantom income taxation, and the CFET group of victims and supporters, following the April 7 2008, Squawk Box Podcast.

Some of the more notable ones are in following parts of the APPEALS TO REASON series and form an ongoing flow of answers to question (5).

Victor Drummond ©

APPEALS TO REASON ..

APPEALS TO REASON – Part 12
A series of letters and E-mail messages from Canadian victims
of taxes on phantom income to Canadian Government Authorities, at all levels,
appealing for fair treatment and the, often idiotic, replies they received.

Read: Appeals To Reason Part – 1 (preamble) & Parts – 2, to 11 for more background information.
By Victor Drummond ©
May 2009

Synopsis of the events to the present

Part 8: Excerpts from additional published articles that could explain what happened to disillusion former Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Carol Skelton and possibly the reason she decided not to run for office in the 2008 federal election.

Part 9: Letters to Carol Skelton from other Members of Canada’s 39th Parliament pressuring her to take action to have all Canadian victims of phantom income tax treated fairly.

Part 9 closes part way through reporting on the events following the announcement on May 28 2007 by the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue and the Honourable James Flaherty, Minister of Finance, of two new government initiatives proclaimed to bring fair taxation to all Canadians.

Part 10 Reveals a possible reason why both Prime Minister Paul Martin and Prime Minister Stephen Harper reneged on their public commitments to “fix” and/or “resolve” the phantom Income tax fiasco.

Part 11 Reveals a sample of letters being sent to the Hon Jim Flaherty describing the distress being caused to honest, hard-working Canadians by the defective taxable benefit legislation and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) policy in applying that legislation to tax phantom income.

Now read excerpts (below) from the Hon. Mr. Flaherty’s speech to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, where he preaches “Tax Fairness” for all Canadians
======================================

January 30, 2007

Remarks by the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance

Introduction

Good morning.

Mister Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

You have received a briefing book with a copy of my statement, a document outlining our revenue estimates and calculations, and a series of charts illustrating the growing trend towards trust conversions and foreign ownership.

I insisted on being the first witness to remind this committee directly of the critical importance of moving forward with our income trust policy and our Tax Fairness Plan.

Make no mistake; the decision that was taken on October 31st is all about fairness.

Fairness for Canadian taxpayers and their families who would be asked to pay more and more;

Fairness within the corporate sector, where the current rules give income trusts a tax advantage and distort investment decisions;

Fairness for Canadian taxpayers, who are seeing tax dollars sent out of the country to foreign investors; and
Fairness for all Canadian governments, federal and provincial, who are experiencing a significant loss of tax revenue.

I want to take the next few minutes to: Quickly outline the Tax Fairness Plan;

Walk the committee through the numbers and our methodology. As I indicated in the fall, we estimate the federal revenue loss was about $500 million in 2006 and growing, and this is a conservative estimate.

I will also point out the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax loss to the provinces.

I will talk about the fact that the landscape had changed dramatically with almost $70 billion in trust conversions taking place or being announced in the first 10 months of 2006.

I will also explain why it would be a mistake to carve out the energy sector and provide them with a permanent tax holiday.

And finally, I want touch on the need to maintain a four-year transition period in order to avoid billions more in revenue loss.

Tax Fairness Plan

I want to say from the outset that it is regrettable that some investors suffered financial losses. Although it was a very difficult decision, it was an absolutely necessary decision for the country and for future generations of Canadians, our children and grandchildren.

Our Tax Fairness Plan achieves two critically important goals. It restores balance and fairness in the tax system and strengthens the Canadian economy, now and into the future.

The Tax Fairness Plan achieves these goals through:

A distribution tax on distributions from publicly traded income trusts with a four-year transition period for existing trusts;
An additional reduction in the general corporate income tax rate of half a percentage point in 2011;
An increase in the age credit amount by $1,000 to benefit low- and middle-income seniors; and
The ability for pensioners to split income beginning this year. Pension income splitting is a major positive change in tax policy for pensioners and seniors. It significantly enhances the incentives to save and invest for family retirement security.
I want to be clear with the members of this committee and with all Canadians. I have no intention of altering the substance of the government's decision, including the four-year transition period for existing trusts.

Canadians are looking for fairness and for certainty. And our Tax Fairness Plan provides both.

An Unfair Burden

I've said it repeatedly as Finance Minister: Canadians pay too much tax. And this government has already taken steps to reduce their tax burden.

Simply ignoring this issue would have resulted in Canadians paying more tax, not less, today and for years to come.

===============================================
(Note:- The next dozen paragraphs, or so were devoted to justifying changing the tax rules regarding income trusts. and have been omitted from this APPEALS TO REASON article.)
===============================================
Conclusion

A few finals thoughts to conclude.

In the end, our government was faced with a hard choice, and now this Parliament is faced with a big decision: to make the Tax Fairness Plan a reality.

We chose not only to recognize a growing problem occurring in Canada's tax system, but to fix that problem.

We made our decision based not on political calculations, as did the previous government, but on principles of tax fairness, balancing the needs of individual investors with the interests of taxpayers and their families.

And we acted responsibly and decisively.

It is not tax fairness if it is only for a few.

And it is not strengthening the economy if the playing field is not level for all businesses.

And committee members should recognize that they can't turn the clock back. There has been a substantial change of ownership in trusts since October 31, 2006-for a number of trusts, up to one quarter of the shares have changed hands.
Where there was once speculation as more and more large corporations opted to become income trusts, today there is certainty.

Businesses are making their own choices to grow this economy. They're moving on.
It's time we all move on in the interests of all Canadians.

The result of our decision is clear: a tax system that is fairer for Canadians and that will help make our economy more productive, efficient and dynamic today and for years to come.

I would now be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

=======================================

Readers may read Jim Flaherty’s entire speech by visiting:- http://www.fin.gc.ca/n08/08-033_1-eng.asp

I wish I had been at that meeting for I have a few questions I would like to ask the Hon. Mr. Flaherty such as:

How do you correlate your statement: “We made our decision based not on political calculations, as did the previous government, but on principles of tax fairness, balancing the needs of individual investors with the interests of taxpayers and their families.” when you oppose amending the Canadian taxable benefit legislation that has, and is, causing honest, hard-working Canadian taxpayers financial ruin, broken families and/or loss of retirement savings, and/or loss of education funds and even in some cases loss of homes?

How do you correlate your statement: "It is not tax fairness if it is only for a few." when you oppose extending the fairer tax treatment -- provided to a very few victims of taxes levied on phantom income via the Gary Lunn Tax Remission Order (TRO) – to all Canadians victimized by the same defective legislation and abusive tax application policy?

Can you stand up and say with a straight face: “Canadians are looking for fairness and for certainty. And our Tax Fairness Plan provides both.” while totally ignoring dozens of letters from honest, hard-working Canadians, appealing for “fair” and "equal treatment under the law.” as you promised in your updated “Taxpayers Bill of Rights”. (See APPEALS TO REASON – Part 11 for a typical letter of appeal.)

In the portions of your address to the HOC standing Committee on Finance, presented above you used the word “fairness” relative to taxing Canadians, individuals and business no less than 15 times.

Yet your actions, toward actually providing a level playing field and a fair policy of personal taxation, have been and still are directly opposed to providing equal treatment and are anything but fair.

My Mennonite maternal Grandmother had very appropriate titles for people who looked you in the eye and made fine statements totally lacking in credibility, truth or honesty.

And in comparing your speeches, to your related actions, the first of granny’s titles that comes to mind is “Flannel Mouth” (FM). And the second title to come to mind is “Snake Oil Peddler” (SOP).

In my opinion your performance, to date, entitles you to both titles. However I’ll settle for: “Flannel Mouth Flaherty” (FMF) which has a nice ring to it and tells it like it really is.

=====================================
Now how about your true attitude regarding providing Canadian taxpayers "a fair deal and a level playing field".

Reference: “JDS deal dangerous precedent, Ottawa told.” in APPEALS TO REASON – Part 9

The “senior bureaucrats” that turned Prime Minister Harper away from fulfilling his commitment to “resolving the tax on phantom income issue” are still laughing all the way to the bank with their ill-gotten loot.

The article then reports on the SDL Optics/JDSU Tax Remission Order and the commitment made by the Right Honourable Stephen Harper to “resolve this problem” an action that has yet to be attempted by any “senior bureaucrat” in the Canadian government.

To my knowledge the SDL Optics victims are the only Canadian taxpayers, so far, that have had their tax on phantom income revoked and received anything like “fair” treatment as promised in the bogus updated "Taxpayers Bill of Rights". How does that situation exist in the same universe with your statement: “It is not tax fairness if it is only for a few.”

Perhaps you have the definition of the word “favouritism” confused with the true meaning of the word “fairness”.

When Canadians become aware of the scam that FMF and his gang of “senior bureaucrats” have worked on them they should be absolutely outraged because it is becoming increasingly clear that FMF considers the average Canadian to be a mentally challenged dupe that would not recognize, and/or take any action, when they have been played for fools.

From now until FMF begins to tell it like it is, and he starts keeping his commitment(s) to the Canadian people then anyone who votes for him is exactly what he thinks they are.

Victor Drummond ©

APPEALS TO REASON ..

APPEALS TO REASON – Part 10
A series of letters and E-mail messages from Canadian victims
of taxes on phantom income to Canadian Government Authorities, at all levels,
appealing for fair treatment and the, often idiotic, replies they received.

Read: Appeals To Reason Part – 1 (preamble) & Parts – 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 for more background information.
By Victor Drummond ©
May 2009

Synopsis of the events to the present

Part 8: Excerpts from additional published articles that could explain what happened to disillusion former Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Carol Skelton and possibly the reason she decided not to run for office in the 2008 federal election.

Part 9: Letters to Carol Skelton from other Members of Canada’s 39th Parliament pressuring her to take action to have all Canadian victims of phantom income tax treated fairly.

Part 9 closes part way through reporting on the events following the announcement on May 28 2007 by the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue and the Honourable James Flaherty, Minister of Finance, of two new government initiatives falsely proclaimed to bring fair taxation to all Canadians.

======================================
The following article that appeared in the National Post, Financial Post section on June 9 2007
may have been the straw that broke Carol Skelton’s association with the perfidious “senior bureaucrats” in the Conservative party.

======================================
Financial Post, June 9, 2007.

Taxpayer rights don’t apply equally.

In Toronto’s historic Dominion Public Building on a bright Monday morning in late May, Minister of National Revenue Carol Skelton, flanked by Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, took the stage at a press conference to proclaim Canada’s new Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

In the two weeks since the announcement, the new bill containing 15 taxpayer rights has been dismissed by various columnists (including Jon Chevreau and Arthur Drache of this paper) as nothing more than a huge public relations exercise by the Canada Revenue Agency.

But if you’re one of the thousands of Canadians who face a looming tax bill on paper profits that subsequently vanished, the new Bill of Rights and, in particular Right No. 8 – “the right to have the law applied consistently” smacks of doublespeak considering the preferential tax treatment given only a small group of former JDS Uniphase employees.

But what about people like Victoria resident Kevin Hawe? Mr. Hawe joined ACD Systems, a technology start-up, in May, 1999, as vice-president, sales and marketing. The company went public in 2000, and Mr. Hawe exercised stock options, paying $0.25 per share when the market value of the stock was around $12.

=====================================

(Note:- What was not made clear in this article is that terms of the Employee Shares Option (ESO) plan that Mr. Hawe signed contained black-out conditions that prevented him from selling any shares, he purchased under the plan, for months at a time.)

(These black-out periods generally preceded and followed scheduled corporation financial reports. Because Mr. Hawe was considered senior management his disposal of ACD corporation shares could trigger a general stock market sell-off. )

======================================

When he received his T4 slip in February, 2001, he was shocked to see that he had crystallized a $1.2-million employment benefit, which would be deferred until he sold the shares. Meanwhile, the stock had dropped in value to $7.

Mr. Hawe explains “I didn’t want to sell stock --- I just kept drinking the
Kool-Aid.” As an insider, he was also subject to severe restrictions on when he could sell the shares. Besides selling the stock would have triggered an immediate tax liability. Not something, Mr. Hawe wanted.

Earlier this year he was forced to sell his shares when ACD was taken private at $0.57 per share.

The CRA has traditionally had little sympathy for employees such as Mr. Hawe, who don’t sell their shares immediately. The agency’s thinking is that employees who hold their shares have chosen to accept a market risk as an investor in the expectation of future appreciation. Thus they are subject to the same rules respecting capital gains and losses as other investors.

========================================

(Note:- The last statement attributed to the policy of the CRA is inherently wrong, on two scores:-

(1) On what written law does the CRA base their right to apply a tax on ESPP/ESO equities when the equities have not actually delivered the theoretical gain being taxed?

Has any ESPP/ESO contract contained a clause stipulating the related equities must be sold or exchanged at the time of exercise?

If so – show me.

Is there any tax legislation and/or published tax guideline that makes, and informs, the taxpayer of such a stipulation?

If so – show me.

(2) The taxpayer who fails to sell their ESPP/ESO equities at the time of exercise is not “subjected to the same rules respecting capital gains or losses as other investors.”

If that were true then all investors would be taxed on the value of their equities at time of delivery, or, no one would be so taxed.

It is very obvious the CRA supported by “senior bureaucrats” in the Canadian government have targeted taxpayers who participate in ESPP/ESO plans and they are not about to give up such a lucrative cash-cow no matter how unfair, or devastating the policy may be to honest, hard-working Canadians.

Their greed obviously far outweighs their allotment of decency, honesty, integrity and compassion.)

===========================================

When Mr. Hawe first read about the JDS deal in his local paper, he immediately called Mr. Lunn’s office. “It doesn’t apply to you.” he was told. “I felt like I had been kicked in the head,” Mr. Hawe said.

In January, I asked Ms. Skelton if the treatment JDS employees received would be available to the thousands of other Canadians similarly affected. Last month I received a two-line e-mail response from Ms. Skelton stating that the CRA “is implementing the direction that the Government of Canada has provided, which specifies that such relief is available only to former employees of SDL Optics (JDS Uniphase) who participated in the company’s stock purchase plan.”

======================================

The above article concludes with an account of the author asking Ms. Carol Skelton “how Rule No 8 of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights” – the right to have the law applied consistently – jibes with her position on JDS. Ms. Skelton said she would look into it and then shut down the press conference.”

=====================================

Likely Ms. Skelton’s attempts to “look into the issue” put her at odds with those “senior government bureaucrats” who call the shots for Canada’s Prime Ministers and also apparently for leaders of the federal opposition parties as well.

So far as I am aware: Not one federal political party leader has so much as whispered: “let’s really restore fair and equitable taxation for all Canadian taxpayers.”

From the announcement of the updated “Taxpayers Bill of Rights” with the Hon. Jim Flaherty’s statement:- “When it comes to taxes this government believes in strong accountability, but fairness.” nothing has been done by Mr. Flaherty to actually provide “fairness” to honest, hard-working Canadians who have been grossly abused by the CRA when demanding payment of outrageous taxes on money they never received. “Blarney” would be the politest word I can think of to describe that deception.

If the Hon Jim Flaherty has done anything regarding "fair" treatment of Canadian victims of phantom taxation it has been to vigorously oppose fair treatment of these abused Canadians.
======================================
The following letters are likely typical of many such appeals Ms Skelton received.
======================================
May 11, 2007

Honourable Carol Skelton
Minister of National Revenue
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Dear Ms. Skelton

Re: Tax Rules for Employee Stock Option (ESO) Plans

Under current legislation my understanding is that on sale of a company, stocks are deemed taxable benefits, yet the employee doesn’t actually receive the monetary payout on the stocks. The employee must then bear the financial burden of paying increased taxes without having the increased funds to do so.
While deferral of this tax is now possible, current legislation continues to place undue burden on hard working Canadians.

Many Canadians view the problems with ESO’s as being essentially the same as with ESPP’s. The Conservative government has addressed the ESPP tax problems, yet similar action has not been taken with ESO’s

While individuals wait for change on this issue, please clarify the appeal process and options available as they attempt to manage their financial burdens through the Canada Revenue Agency.

This is an issue of fairness. As such I urge you to implement equitable remedies. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

(Signed)

Jean Crowder, MP (NDP)
Nanaimo-Cowichan
(British Columbia)

========================================
May 14, 2007

URGENT

Hon. Carol Skelton, P.C., M.P.
Minister of National Revenue
555 Mackenzie Avenue
Connaught Building, 7th Floor
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0L5

Dear Minister Skelton,

This concerns a critical situation concerning Mr. Kevin Hawe who has been a victim of the employee share option tax devisal. You are well aware of the ESO’s and how they trigger massive debts on profits that are never realized. This is similar to but not identical to the ESPP program of which JDS Uniphase was a prominent example. I might also remind you that I have written to your office in the past on this particular case and situation and have yet to receive any adequate response.

Therefore in the case of Mr. Hawe I strongly ask that you look into his case because due to a public company in which he held stock going private he has been forced to realize a tax bill of $280,000 on a fictitious deemed disposition equal to $1,225,350.

Quite frankly I am personally very frustrated in the inability to get answers or to deal with this situation and given the catastrophe that this poses for people who were in ESO’s I am asking for a response so that these individuals do not have to pay these ridiculous onerous taxes on unrealized profits and the taxes they do pay are commensurate with the profits they receive.

An urgent response to this matter is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely

Dr. Keith Martin, M.D., P.C., M.P.
Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca

===================================
I have travelled from coast to coast in Canada and lived in several western provinces while working for the installation department of a large Canadian communications corporation.

You can not find more honest, decent, ethical, kind and conscientious people anywhere in Canada than you will find in the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Carol Skelton was born in Biggar Saskatchewan and was first elected to the office of federal MP, as a member of the Canadian Alliance for the riding of, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, in the year 2000 federal election.

Evidence of her concern for the well-being of her constituents, and all Canadians in general, is revealed in the social programs she promptly became involved with:

Carol is the former opposition critic of Family issues, Children and Youth, Human Resources Development, the Deputy Prime Minister, Social Economy, Western Economic Diversification, Public Health and Social Development, where she was instrumental in developing the party’s child care policies.

In her first run at becoming an elected Member of Parliament Carol barely won by the slim margin of only 68 votes over NDP incumbent Dennis Gruending.

Carol went up against Dennis again, in the 2004 federal election, and that time won by a comfortable 2000 vote majority. Her constituent support grew with each succeeding federal election.

The foregoing information, supplied by Wikipedia, is very strong evidence that Carol Skelton is a person of integrity, honesty and compassion.

No doubt when Carol Skelton realized she was an unwitting party to a political atrocity and had been scammed along with the rest of the Canadian voting population, by her own Conservative colleagues she wasn’t too happy.

Receiving letters such as from colleague Dr. Keith Martin and from opposition MP, Jean Crowder , (above) certainly wouldn’t give Carol much comfort or piece of mind either.

When the Right Honourable Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet on August 14, 2007, and Carol Skelton was replaced by the incompetent Honourable Gordon O’Connor, as Minister of National Revenue, I believe, a truly Honourable, Carol Skelton became another victim of the tax on phantom income fiasco.


Victor Drummond ©

APPEALS TO REASON ..

APPEALS TO REASON – Part 9
A series of letters and E-mail messages from Canadian victims
of taxes on phantom income to Canadian Government Authorities, at all levels,
appealing for fair treatment and the, often idiotic, replies they received.

Read: Appeals To Reason Part – 1 (preamble) & Parts – 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8 for more background information.
By Victor Drummond ©
May 2009

Synopsis of the events to the present

Part 6: In the federal election of 2006 the Conservative Party was elected on the promise of fair and reduced taxation and their slogan “STAND UP FOR CANADA”

Read APPEALS TO REASON Part 6 to see how the “Fair Tax” promise was perverted and the federal Conservative party failed to “STAND UP FOR THE CANADIANS THAT ELECTED THEM”.

Part 7: Reprints of two articles that appeared in Canadian Newspapers revealing the way the outrageous tax on phantom income issue was bungled by both Prime Minister Paul Martin and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Part 8: Excerpts from additional published articles that could explain what happened to disillusion former Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Carol Skelton and possibly the reason she decided not to run for office in the 2008 federal election. Part 9 continues with comments on the article “JDS deal dangerous precedent, Ottawa told.” which appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist Newspaper June 9, 2007.

================================
Following is an excerpt from the article: “JDS deal dangerous precedent, Ottawa told.”

The decision, recently published as a “remission order” in the Canada Gazette, was approved by cabinet despite objections from officials at Finance and Canada Revenue Agency.

Senior bureaucrats warned such a decision was unfair to other taxpayers and set a dangerous precedent for employees of other high-tech companies who watched their fortunes rise and fall during the dot-com boom and subsequent crash.

======================================

It appears these “senior bureaucrats” don’t have a rat’s ass level of concern for the unfairness of taxing people on money that never existed. Obviously they couldn’t care less regarding the financial ruin, distress, harm and anxiety their tax policy is causing to honest, hard-working Canadian taxpayers.

What about Canadians who fail to take a real profit on their personal stock market investments when they have an opportunity to do so?

Is that a crime punishable by the CRA having the right to tax the money an investor might have realized – but failed to do so?

If not, then, why not? Haven’t they broken the same cardinal rule?

Can anyone show me a Canadian law, or tax rule, that states any person failing to sell their equities at a time when they could take a profit will be taxed on the profit they might have made?

Can anyone show me an ESPP/ESO plan document that informs the participating employee they should, or must, sell their equities, acquired via the plan(s) on the day they receive (exercise) them?

It should be obvious to every intelligent human that “Almost windfall gains” can only be used to pay: “almost taxes” not real taxes and if any crime is thereby committed it is not by the victimized taxpayer.

Apparently treating some victimized Canadian taxpayers “fairly” is setting a “dangerous precedent” that shouldn’t be applied to any victimized Canadians and definitely not to all Canadians, according to “senior bureaucrats” in the CRA and the office of the Minister of Finance.

It also appears as though the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue was left holding the bag on the Tax Remission Order (TRO) boondoggle when Prime Minister Harper did an about face and decided he would rather default on his commitment to put an end to taxing phantom income when he said: “We’ll get it resolved.”

Harper obviously changed his mind and decided to allow the tax on phantom income to go on devastating honest hard-working Canadians, rather than to keep his commitment and give up the loot the CRA was, and still is, legally extorting. A quality reminiscent of: “Judas Iscariot”.

So what did the Prime Minister and his flunkeys actually do, to at least appear to be trying, to: “get it resolved.”?

==================================
Following the event of the special tax treatment given the SDL Optics/JDSU plant by the Harper government, via the Gary Lunn (TRO) and the Right Honourable Stephen Harpers commitment to “resolve” the phantom tax problem, what action was taken?

How about establishing a, “Tax Ombudsman”, to which dissatisfied Canadian taxpayers can appeal for justice and “fair” taxation. An ombudsman that is funded by the CRA and has the power to admonish any Revenue Canada Agent that has such lack of tact and diplomacy as to use harsh words when communicating/intimidating delinquent taxpayers.

In order to make this new government “ombudsman” appear to have the power to provide Canadians with justice and fair taxation there was an announcement of an updated “Taxpayers Bill of Rights” at the same time.

And so it came to pass that on May 28 2007 the Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Carol Skelton together with the Honourable James Flaherty, Minister of Finance, made an announcement, in Toronto Ontario, of :“two new government initiatives”:

(1) A taxpayer’s bill of rights: and
(2) A taxpayer’s ombudsman to ensure the Canada Revenue Agency is more accountable to Canadians.

The announced document lists 15 items as the “Rights” of Canadian taxpayers.

The Honourable James Flaherty is quoted during this announcement as saying: “When it comes to taxes this government believes in strong accountability, but fairness.” “We have introduced the tax fairness plan and the Anti-tax Haven Initiative.”

“Our next important step is introducing a Taxpayers Bill of Rights and a Taxpayers Ombudsman, which will ensure fair treatment of all taxpayers by the CRA.”

To read the complete announcement visit: www.cfib.ca/legis/national/pdf/5395.pdf

====================================

Fine words Minister Flaherty. When you made that speech weren't your lips moving?

Nearly two years have passed since that fine speech and to date CFET has to hear of one Canadian, victimized by the tax on phantom income, receiving anything like the same “fairness” as the SDL Optics victims received.

When may we expect all Canadian victims, of taxes imposed on phantom income, to receive fair and equal treatment, while bearing in mind a “senior bureaucrat” in your office warned the Right Honourable Stephen Harper against giving any victimized Canadian taxpayers a fair deal.

Apparently your lips were moving when you made that fine speech while announcing the updated “Taxpayers Bill of Rights” that ALMOST guaranteed every Canadian the RIGHT to have: “the law applied equally”.

What kind of sucker deal were you foisting on the Canadian voter by combining the announcement of creating a toothless “Taxpayers Ombudsman” together with an updated “Taxpayers Bill of Rights” that the Taxpayers Ombudsman has no mandate or power to enforce?

Wasn’t this announcement intentionally designed to deceive all Canadians into assuming the newly created “Taxpayers Ombudsman” had the mandate and power to enforce the terms of the “Taxpayers Bill of Rights”?

There isn’t a doubt that was an intended scam. And everyone who was taken in by that perfidious bit of political deception should be outraged at the “senior bureaucrats”, in our government, for the low opinion they obviously hold of the average Canadian’s level of intelligence.

Anyone who votes for their federal riding candidate from now on, without question, proves the government scammers are at least partially correct in that opinion.

Also I doubt the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue realized, at the time, she was being used to add credibility to this scam.

=======================================
Shortly following the Newspaper articles:- January 13 2007 article:- “What about the rest of us?” and Stock fiasco victims to get tax refunds: (see APPEALS TO REASON – Part 8), many excluded victims turned their attention to the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue hoping she could, and would, take action to assist the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, implement his commitment to “resolve” the issue and bring fair taxation to them all.

How do you imagine she felt when in good faith she endorsed the Right Honourable Stephen Harper’s commitment to: "we'll get it resolved" and “that changes to the federal tax code were necessary.”, only to have her endorsement blow up in her face when the Right Honourable Stephen Harper perverted that commitment to have “two new tax initiatives” introduced but did absolutely nothing to actually “resolve” or provide the promised “fairness” to victims of phantom tax.

Possibly Carol still had some faith, in her conservative party colleagues, when she joined the Honourable James Flaherty, Minister of Finance in making the announcement of two new tax initiatives at a Toronto Ontario meeting, on May 28 2007.

Well it is now almost two years since that perfidious announcement was made and I have yet to hear of even one more Canadian taxpayer, any victim of the same defective tax legislation that had devastated the SDL Optics/JDSU employees, that has had their tax on phantom income revoked by way of an appeal to the “Tax Ombudsman”.

Read more details of this “senior bureaucrat” fiasco when APPEALS TO REASON – Part 10 is posted.

Victor Drummond ©