Assorted content for your year-end reading. – Allison Maher et al. study how COVID-19 causes fundamental changes to a person’s immune system, resulting in far greater vulnerability to other infections. Spencer Kimball reports on the rapid spread of the XBB.1.5 COVID-19 variant – which appears to be rendering previous types
Continue readingTag: CRA
Politics and its Discontents: Friends In High Places Are Good (For Some)
Having friends in high places is certainly something the wealthy must savour as they continue to hide money in offshore tax havens. Yes, the very same havens the Trudeau government promised to crack down on. And the very same tax havens that, as I recently posted, seem to inspire timidity
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Our Timid Canadian Revenue Agency
Over a year ago I posted about the sad record of the CRA in pursuing offshore tax cheats as revealed by the Panama Papers. It seems that little has changed since then. In a Policy Options article, Senator Percy Down asks, Why can’t the Canada Revenue Agency catch tax cheats?
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Less Than Meets The Eye?
Given its recent rather dubious pursuits of lost tax revenue, I readily admit that I don’t know what to make of the latest report that the CRA has actually begun to pursue monies lost to offshore tax havens. Zach Dubinsky reports the following: Canada Revenue Agency officers, backed up by
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: CRA seeks Canadians’ feedback on its controversial auditing of charities’ political activities
The Canada Revenue Agency wants to hear from Canadians regarding its controversial auditing of charities’ political activities. The public’s feedback will lead to “the development of new guidance or educational resources for charities on the rules governing political activities.” The post CRA seeks Canadians’ feedback on its controversial auditing of
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Green Party of Canada asks CRA to revoke Jewish National Fund’s charity status
The Green Party of Canada is calling on the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the charity status of the Jewish National Fund on the grounds that the organization discriminates against Palestinians and non-Jews in Israel. Also, Israel’s “failure to comp…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Remembrances Of Things Past (And Present)
I suspect it is only the very young and the profoundly naive who believe that justice is blind, that all are treated equaly under the law. While a pleasing fiction that governments like to perpetuate, nothing could be further from the truth.Consider th…
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Bogus CRA Con Artists Are Out To Scam You
I had a call this morning was amusing, but only because I knew it was a scam. The caller, with a thick foreign accent, identified himself James Anderson from the Canadian Revenue Canada. That was Read more…
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Trudeau: CRA must allow charities to do their work “free from political harassment”
In his recent Ministerial Mandate Letter to Diane Lebouthillier, the Minister of National Revenue, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) must allow charities to do their work free from political harassment.
The post Trudeau…
The Canadian Progressive: Trudeau Government Blocks Harper’s Draconian Bill C-377
The Liberal government has announced what appears to be Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first step towards repealing Harper’s Bill C-377, a draconian law that sought to weaken Canada’s labour movement. The government has waived reporting requirements…
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: CRA Guts Dying With Dignity’s Long-Standing Charitable Status
Leading death with dignity lobby group announced Tuesday that it’s losing its charitable status after a recent political-activity audit by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The post CRA Guts Dying With Dignity’s Long-Standing Charitable Status appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Suspicious Deletions At CRA
While it may not qualify as a smoking gun, a series of text-message deletions at Canada Revenue Agency looks decidedly suspicious. Given what many see as the Agency’s Harper-directed war against non-profits that are critical of government policy, there is ample reason to see foul play in the move. Today’s
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: 400 Canadian Academics Demand CRA Stop Auditing Progressive Think-Tank
More than 420 Canadian academics have written to the Minister of National Revenue demanding an immediate stop to the CRA’s audit of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The post 400 Canadian Academics Demand CRA Stop Auditing Progressive Think-Tank appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper’s War on Charities is a War on All of Us
Never underestimate the scope and impact of the Harper regime’s war to gag our charities. Oxford student and 2013 Rhodes Scholar, Joanne Cave writes in today’s Times Colonist that the use of the CRA cudgel to silence charities by Harper & Co.is just the tip of the iceberg. The recent
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Denial And Outrage
During my teaching career, it was occasionally my unpleasant task to confront a student with evidence of his or her cheating; most situations revolved around plagiarizing essays or having skipped a test. The student’s responses when confronted were invariably the same; indeed, they tended to parallel Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Gruending On The CRA Audits
From his latest: The government, however, has sent unmistakable signals that it wants a crackdown. Recent federal budgets have provided the CRA with an additional $13 million in special funding to undertake such audits at a time when the government was slashing the CRA’s budget by $250 million over three
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: More Totalitarianism From The Harper
Just as Harper has been tearing down the apparatus of scientific research that would ordinarily be used by governing parties to make informed policy decisions, the next prong of his attack on reasoned governance in Canada has begun. It really began in 2012, when the government rolled out a
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: After all, what would a Minister of Revenue know about taxes?
Committee studying offshore tax evasion will not question revenue minister A finance committee study on tax havens will be written without input from National Revenue Minister Gail Shea after the Conservative majority struck down an NDP request to question the minister about spending priorities inside her department. In arguing against
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada Revenue Agency asks CBC to submit data on tax havens
By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: The use of tax havens is at an all-time high in Canada and it’s costing Canadians an estimated $7.8 billion annually, the executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness, Dennis Howlett, recently said in his brief to the House of Commons Finance Committee. Now the Canada Revenue Agency
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Bill Kristol Mocks Idea of CRA Causing Housing Crash
The zombie lie that the Community Reinvestment Act was substantially or primarily the cause of the 2008 economic crisis may just have taken a mortal blow; Bill Kristol has apparently mocked the idea: But here was Bill Kristol reminding the summit audience that the “worst moment, economically, in middle-class Americans’
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