Product Description
by Alex Himelfarb (Editor), Jordan Himelfarb (Editor)
This book is about taxes in Canada: who pays what, and who gets what. Taxes connect us to one another, to the common good, and to the future. In many respects, then, this is a book about the Canada we want, about citizenship and the common good, and about the role of government. The contributors, leading practitioners and scholars on taxation and public policy in Canada, explore how taxes have become a political "no-go zone" and how changes in taxation are changing Canada. They challenge the view that "any tax is a bad tax" and provide broad directions for fairer and smarter approaches. Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word provides new information on how taxation, and our thinking about it, has evolved. The contributors present data that set out what we get for what we pay and what we lose when we pay less. They seek to capture how citizens came to think of tax cuts as the "last free lunch" and propose ways to generate a public discussion on the subject despite the political reluctance. This is a book that will be of interest to students of public policy and public affairs, economics, and political science and to anyone interested in challenging the conventional wisdom that ever-lower taxes and smaller government are the answers to what ails us.
Author Biography
Alex Himelfarb is the director of the Glendon School of Public and International Aff airs and the Centre for Global Challenges at York University. A federal public servant for twenty-eight years before his retirement in 2009, he served as Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to Cabinet for three prime ministers, as Canada's Ambassador to Italy, as Deputy Minister of Canadian Heritage, and in senior positions in numerous ministries and agencies.Jordan Himelfarb is an opinion editor at The Toronto Star. Previously he was the editor of The Mark and the Arts and Ideas editor of This Magazine. His writing has appeared in many of Canada's foremost newspapers and magazines. He is also co-editor of the music website Said the Gramophone, one of Time Magazine's top blogs of 2009.
