ITS MY BALL - ITS MY BAT -

ITS MY BALL – ITS MY BAT - AND ITS MY GLOVE
A commentary on the Canadian Government’s attitude towards
correcting the unjust, unfair and outrageous tax on phantom income.

by Victor Drummond ©
September 2009

Even before the group called “Canadians for Fair and equalized Taxation” (CFET) appeared on the Canadian Political scene (February 21 2008) many honest, hard-working Canadians, caught in the taxable benefits booby-trap, had appealed to all levels of the Canadian Government for “fair taxation”.

Canada’s Liberal government, all the way from The Right Honourable Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada, down to the lowest level back bencher, treated these victimized taxpayers as cash-cows and fiddled around with appellant’s communications by passing their appeals back and forth between themselves without anyone raising a finger to correct the problem. When a victim did receive a bottom line reply, from a responsible Minister, the message equated to: “you have been taxed according to existing Canadian Laws so pay up and shut up.”

The issue became even more unfair, when the conservative government was elected to form Canada’s government in 2006 and then proceeded to acknowledge taxing of phantom income was unjustified, and unfair, by creating a Tax Remission Order (TRO) cancelling all taxes on phantom income and related penalties for 37 former employees of the defunct SDL Optics Inc./JDS Uniphase Corp. plant in Saanich British Columbia.

A remark attributed to the riding MP, The Honourable Gary Lunn, at that time implied that a change of government had brought about this fair tax TRO and the Prime Minister had listened to the victims appeals and acted to correct the problem.

Even The Right Honourable Stephen Harper was quoted as saying: “we’ll get it resolved” when asked what would be done, by his government, to correct the problem for all victimized Canadians.

Perhaps the Conservative government considered the problem resolved when they announced the creation of the updated “Taxpayers Bill of Rights” along with the newly created government office of a “Taxpayers Ombudsman” in May 2007.

No doubt the public assumed the Taxpayer’s Ombudsman had the power to enforce those upgraded Taxpayers Bill of Rights.

And no doubt the fact that both events were announced at the same time, by the same high level Conservative Ministers, The Hon Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue, and the Hon Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, that is exactly what the Canadian public were intended to believe. BUT It’s not so.

Unfortunately both items were nothing more than a big farce. The Taxpayers Ombudsman has no mandate to enforce anything.

His office budget is a sub-component of the Department of Finance operating budget making him a puppet of the Department of Finance.

Appeals submitted to the office of the Taxpayers Ombudsman are filed as “Complaints” and forwarded to the Canada Revenue Agency for processing.

So victims of the tax on “money never seen” are still sitting at square 1.

When CFET came into existence appeals for “fair taxation” have become more documented, more co-ordinated and better organized. Members of CFET have been granted hearings with members of the House of Parliament Standing Committee on Finance (FINA).

FINA recently passed a motion, by a vote of 7 to 0, to have the phantom tax issue reviewed and they requested impact information from the Department of Finance with a reply by mid September 2009.

A reply was received from the Department of Finance, before the target date, but the information requested was not provided and the tone of the reply came across to me as saying: “It’s my ball, it’s my bat and it’s my glove” so play according to my rules or get lost.”

One thing our elected politicians should keep in mind is:
Right – while you are part of the government in office: “it is your ball, it is your bat and it is your glove BUT it is our field your playing in and if you do not want to spend your next election term in the showers – Play Fair.”

Canadian voters need to make their voice heard on the phantom tax issue.

Everyone, excepting those with a vested interest in the status quo, who have taken the time to check the facts, for themselves, has reached the inevitable conclusion taxing honest, hard-working Canadians on money that only existed in theory is unjust, unfair and un-Canadian. Paying this tax, with after tax dollars, is double taxation making the situation doubley unfair.

While there is still time to get through to your elected representative, and/or those who campaign to become your elected representative, please inform them that you demand Canada’s defective taxable benefit legislation be corrected and those who have already paid taxes on income, that never came in, be fairly compensated.

The U.S. government has already acknowledged this tax is unjust, and have corrected their phantom income tax legislation and also retroactively fairly compensated those victimized by it. Canada has no excuse for continuing to abuse Canadian taxpayers by way of this insidious tax policy.

See you at the voting polls of the next federal election O’Grady.

Victor Drummond ©