Taxes: How much do people actually pay? (and why are they so oblivious?)

[Thorin]

I've been following the news about Trump and Trudeau's interactions and the tariffs that have been set and are planned between the countries, because I know that the coming trade war is going to hurt my retirement funds.  I ended up at this article on the National Post: http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/under-fire-over-tariffs-trump-heads-to-g-7-summit-in-canada.  I (perhaps unwisely) chose to view the comments since there were only 20 or so at the time.  Almost immediately, I came across this comment from someone complaining about how much taxes they've paid:

Nancy Crawford ? Works at The Licensing Company

Not only that but Trudeau talking about protecting Canadian workers when he attacks us himself with his policies and giving away money to the UN and looking after illegal migrants better than those of us born here. Carbon taxes, perpetually increasing alcohol taxes, CPP and income taxes increased and eliminating benefits for families. I am a single mother earning min. Wage and somehow paid Ottawa over $3000 last year on income literally half the poverty level- how that works is beyond me but you betcha I feel attacked and raped by my own "leaders". Trudeau's rhetoric is bs 100%. He is so transparent it's insane.

And you know me, I see numbers, I do numbers, right?  It seemed weird to me that someone would claim they're making minimum wage yet paid money in taxes.  So I decided to break it down.

Some assumptions I made based on what little info was posted:
- single mother, so I'm assuming one adult one child under six, dad somewhere else paying child support
- works at The Licensing Company, which is in Calgary, so if she's making minimum wage then she's making $13.60/hr
- assumed full-time work, so 40 hours per week
- claims to be living on income half the poverty level, I'm assuming she meant Low Income Cut Off, since there's no "poverty level" measure in Canada
- dad makes minimum wage, full-time work, and pays child support according to federal guidelines

her paycheque:
- $1,088 gross
- $6.81 tax deducted
- $47.19 cpp deducted
- $18.06 ei deducted
- $1,015.94 net

annually (50 weeks paid):
- $28,288 gross
- $177.06 tax deducted
- $1,226.94 cpp deducted
- $469.56 ei deducted
- $26,414.44 net

Not exactly $3,000 removed from her cheques, is it?  Maybe she's filled out the TD1 completely wrong, in which case she's gonna get all that extra money they're deducting back at the end of the year.  Really, there's only $1,873.56 withheld for the year.

income tax return:
- $268.95 owing at end of year

monthly benefits:
- Canada Child Benefit ($6,496/yr): $541.33

quarterly benefits:
- GST/HST Credit ($717/yr): $179.25
- Alberta Child Benefit ($977.72/yr): $244.43

semiannual benefits:
- Working Income Tax Benefit ($0/yr): $0
- Alberta Climate Leader Adjustment Rebate ($450/yr): $225
- Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit ($783/yr): $391.50

total annual benefits: $9,423.72

So she's had $1,873.56 deducted from her cheques over the year, then has to pay another $268.95 in income tax at the end of the year, and has received $9,423.72 in benefits over the year.  Her actual contribution to the Canadian federal and provincial government coffers?  -$7281.21.  Yes, a negative number, that means she's taken out of the pot, not put into it.

monthly child support:
- ($2,821.92/yr): $235.16

With child support, her net income, after taxes and deductions and benefits, for the year is $38,391.13.  Not nearly as low as she makes it sound when she tries to claim it's half the "poverty level".  Since there's no "poverty level" measure, I looked up the LICO.  The newest I could find is from 2016, which says LICO in a large CMA (Census Metropolitan Area, which Calgary is, and she appears to work in Calgary) is $31,061.  Assuming a 5% increase due to inflation after two years, that's now $32,614.  Rather than being at 50% of the LICO, her net income is actually 117.7% of the LICO, so she in fact isn't even living in poverty.

---

I guess my point is that people like this just don't understand how much money they actually get from the government, or the fact that both Trudeau and Notley have increased how much the poor get from the government, or even that they're not actually living in poverty.

Remember, the government is also going to give her the equivalent of $1,000 of today's dollars a month when she retires, and her family's healthcare is free.

I don't mind people complaining about taxes, we all do it.  I don't mind people wanting more, that's human nature.  But this lady was off by ten thousand dollars in the wrong direction when she claimed the government took a bunch of her money.

[Darren Dirt]

...did you mean to place this thread in the general public subforum? [mainly forward-looking, why I ask]

[Mr. Analog]

I don't expect people to dump their income / taxes anywhere online but if you want to start a sister thread in private do it to it

[Thorin]

Well, I mean, originally this was about someone who posted their situation online and complained that the government took $3k of their money, when in fact the government actually gives them $7k while also providing a small retirement nest egg and free healthcare and infrastructure, so she was off by $10k in the wrong direction.  It wasn't meant to be about my or your income at all.  And I guess it was about how people complain and blame the current leader, even though they have nothing to complain about and the current leader actually increased how much money they get.

We've gone over incomes and taxes and stuff in the past already, haven't we?

[Melbosa]

We've gone over incomes and taxes and stuff in the past already, haven't we?

Yes I believe we have!

[Darren Dirt]

We've gone over incomes and taxes and stuff in the past already, haven't we?

Yes I believe we have!

Actually, when I saw this thread title today, I thought it was a continuation of (new reply to) that previous thread.

...It wasn't meant to be about my or your income at all.

^ it never starts off with those intentions

PS: to be clear, I didn't (and don't) mean anything negative, serious question, I asked because The Royal We = history of topics becoming surprisingly lengthy / detailed / heading into interesting tangents.

Hmmm, possible candidate to just merge with "Need help with Resume" maybe? ROFL, that's a good example of Discussion Creep, quickly went from topics=[resume, interviews, compensation, deductions, retirement] or something like that.

[Thorin]

I'll be careful discussing private information in a public thread.

Just, that lady was completely wrong about her claims of how much money she gives to the government (it's actually the other way around) and of how she's in this deep poverty hell (she's lower income, but is still averaging $3k a month take-home income).

But I get that the title of the original post wasn't clear enough; I was much more focused on "why are they so oblivious?"

[Darren Dirt]

I was much more focused on "why are they so oblivious?"

"Feelings matter more than facts to most robots-made-of-meat"
-a summary of Scott Adams blog over the last 36 months. But, TRUTH.