Kim Siever’s Blog

The Canadian government issued $60 billion in tax relief this week. Here’s a brief breakdown.

• GST cut one percentage point to 5 per cent, effective 1 Jan 2008
• Personal income tax cut retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007, cutting lowest marginal tax rate to 15 per cent from 15.5 per cent
• Jump in basic personal exemption to $9,600, retroactive to 1 Jan 2007, increasing to $10,100 in 2009
• $10-billion in federal debt relief
• One percentage point cut in corporate tax to 20 per cent in 2008
• Reduction in corporate tax rate to 15 per cent by 2012
• Small business income tax reduced to 11 per cent by 2008

Overall, a good tax plan. Apply surplus to the debt, cut corporate tax, and reduce income tax.

A couple of comments though.

Generally, I agree with corporate tax cuts. I am especially intrigued by the plan to have the lowest corporate tax rate of any industrialized nation. I am just not so sure giving a blanket tax cut is th right idea. I believe what we need is more diversity in our economy. Our economy is still very heavy in manufacturing (despite the western boom in energy). Blanket tax cuts will encourage manufacturing companies (and export companies for that matter) to use the extra surplus to compete with our strong dollar. Hopefully, they’ll use the surplus to invest in mechanisms that will help them as the dollar pushes higher, but I am sceptical it will get used for much more than profit.

I’d like to see tax structures in place that encourage more economic diversity, so we can prosper no matter the position of our dollar.

The second comment was toward personal income tax. I am glad they are raising the personal exemption amount an decreasing income tax for the lowest tax bracket. when we consider, however, that they raised the income tax for the lowest tax bracket and lowered the exemption amount when they first took power, it’s hardly much of a cut. It brings us back to nearly what we were at when the Liberals were in power.

The GST cut is my last point. I disagree with it. I mean, honestly, 1% savings? How am I going to benefit from getting $1 back for every $100 I spend? Superstore gives me more back in coupons when I shop (e.g $30 for every $250 spent). The only way I can benefit from a smoke-and-mirrors cut like this is making large purchases like homes and vehicles, but these are not things I buy frequently.

How about cutting the lowest tax bracket to 14% and raising the cap to $40,000? Now, that would be a nice tax break. Oh, and make the universal child benefit tax-free.

This is the third part of the difference between series.

Having worked in a university for over 6 years, I’ve been exposed to a lot of academic writing. The only thing worse than academic writing is business writing. Considering I work in a faculty of management, I get to see the worst of both worlds. Apparently, there isn’t much in the way of grammar instruction in order to get a PhD.

Anyhow.

A common mistake I see in writing is the confusion of “insure” and “ensure”. For example:

Please insure everyone is invited to the meeting.

Never mind the wordiness and the passive voice, this sentence is saying something different from what was intended.

The speaker wants to make sure that everyone knows about an upcoming meeting. Unfortunately, using the word insure implies that the person to whom the command is given is to take out an insurance policy regarding the invitations.

That is what it really comes down to. “Insure” means to issue an insurance policy. The following is what the person should have said.

Please ensure everyone is invited to the meeting.

Some may disagree with this stance and claim the two terms are interchangeable, but I’m not willing to accept that quite yet. I am a proponent of clear, unambiguous sentences. By separating these two meanings, we encourage people to clearly say what they mean.

Let me know if you have any grammar questions, and I’ll be sure to post the question and answer here.

This is the second part of the difference between series.

Another common misuse I hear is that of “lie” and “lay”. Most of the misuse I see is the use of “lay” when the speaker means “lie”.

Lie means to recline, and lay means to put or to place.

An easy way to tell the difference is that lay is a transitive verb (requires a subject and object, such as “I lifted the bag” or “She punished him”) and so requires an object.

Consider the following sentence:

I lay the book on the table.

In the sentence “I” is the subject and “the book” is the object.

Lie on the other had is an intransitive verb (doesn’t take an object). Here’s an example.

I lie down on my bed.

So if you are describing an action where you do something with another object, use “lay”. If you are referring to doing something yourself, use “lie”.

And just to offer a little more confusion, the simple past form of “lay” is “laid. The simple past form of “lie” is “lay”. :) So,

I laid the book on the table. (past)

I lay on the bed. (past)

Hopefully, that clears things up for someone.

Let me know if you have any grammar questions, and I’ll be sure to post the question and answer here.

This is the fourth part of the difference between series.

I’ve seen this before, and just this week in fact. Some people confuse the words “affect” and “effect”. Here’s the difference.

Affect is a verb, and effect is a noun.

Here are some examples:

What effect did the rain have on the crops?

This unbearable heat affects my heart.

See? Pretty easy.

Now, there may be a few diehards who may point out that “effect” can be used as a verb. That is true, but for most people, this won’t be a problem. Nevertheless, I should probably point out the difference between the two verbs.

When used as a verb, effect means “to bring about”. Affect, on the other hand, means “to influence”.

So, “Strong, early rain and late, hot sun brought about good crops” could be rephrased as “Strong, early rain and late, hot sun effected good crops”.

If we said “Strong, early rain and late, hot sun affected good crops”, then we would mean the rain and the sun influenced only the good crops. It would imply, however, that the rain and sun left alone the bad crops.

Clear as mud?

Let me know if you have any grammar questions, and I’ll be sure to post the question and answer here.