What if Canada’s Income Tax Rate Was Zero?

It won’t happening. And perhaps it shouldn’t happen. But we can talk.

By reputation, income tax is an immutable fact of life. But perhaps we can push back against that popular assumption. Or, to put it a different way, thinking about how different things can be is actually loads of fun.

That’s not to suggest that accurately anticipating the full impact of blowing up central economic pillars is simple. But it’s worth a conversation.

First off, because they’ve been around so long, we can easily lose sight of the fact that income taxes cause real economic pain. The median Canadian household earns around $85,000 in a year. Of that, some 13 percent ($11,000) is lost to federal income tax. Provincial income tax and sales taxes, of course, drive that number a lot higher. If owning a house is out of reach for so many Canadians, that’s one of the biggest reasons why.

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Having said that, the $200 billion or so in personal income taxes that Canada collects each year represents around 40 percent of federal spending. In fact, in the absence of other policy changes, eliminating federal personal income tax would probably lead to significant drops in business tax revenues too. (I could see many small businesses choosing to maximize employee salaries to reduce their corporate tax liability.)

So if we wanted to cut taxes without piling on even more debt, we’d need to replace that amount either by finding alternate revenue sources or by cutting spending. If you’ve been keeping up with The Audit, you’ve already seen where and how we might find some serious budget savings in previous posts.

But for fascinating reasons, some of that $200 billion (or, including corporate taxes, $300 billion) shortfall could be made up by wiping out income tax itself. How’s that?

For one thing, many government entitlements and payouts essentially exist to make up for income lost through taxes. For example, the federal government will spend around $26 billion on child tax credits (CCB) in 2025. Since those payments are indexed to income, eliminating federal income tax would, de facto, raise everyone’s income. That increase would drop CCB spending by as much as $15 billion. Naturally, we’d want to reset the program eligibility thresholds to ensure that low-income working families aren’t being hurt by the change, but the savings would still be significant.

There are more payment programs of that sort than you might imagine. Without income taxes to worry about:

The $6.2 billion GST/HST credit would cost us around $3 billion less each year.
The Canada Workers Benefit (CWB) could cost $1.5 billion dollars less.
The Old Age Security (OAS) Clawback would likely generate an extra billion dollars each year in taxes.
The Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income OAS recipients could save $4 billion a year.

Even when factoring in for threshold recalculations to protect vulnerable families from unintended consequences, all those indirect consequences of a tax cut could easily add up to $20 billion in federal spending cuts. And don’t forget how the cost of administering and enforcing the income tax system would disappear. That’ll save us most of the $11 billion CRA costs us each year.

Nevertheless, last I heard, $30 billion (in savings) was a long, long way from $300 billion (in tax revenue shortfalls). No matter how hard we look, we’re not going to find $270 billion in government waste, fraud, and marginal programs to eliminate. And adding more government debt will benefit exactly no one (besides bond holders).

Ok then, let’s say we can find $100 billion in reasonable cuts (see The Audit for details). That would get us close to half way there. But it would also generate some serious economic turbulence.

On the one hand, such cuts would require dropping hundreds of thousands of workers off the federal payroll¹. It would also exert powerful downward pressure on our gross domestic product (GDP).

On the plus side however, a drop in government borrowing of this scale would likely reduce interest rates. That, in turn, could spark private investment activities that partially offset the GDP hit. If you add the personal wealth freed up by our income tax cuts to that mix, you’d likely see another nice GDP bump from sharp increases in household spending and investments.

Precisely predicting how a proposed change might affect all these moving parts is hard. Perhaps the ideal scenario would involve 20 percent or 50 percent cuts to taxes rather than 100 percent. Or maybe we’d be better off by playing around with sales tax rates. But I’m not convinced that anyone is even seriously and objectively thinking about our options right now.

One way or the other, the impact of such radical economic changes would be historic. I think it would be fascinating to develop data models to calculate and rank the macro economic consequences of applying various combinations of variables to the problem.

But taxation is a problem. And it’d be an important first step to recognize it as such.

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Although on the bright side, as least they wouldn’t have to worry about delayed or incorrect Phoenix payments anymore.

Related Topics:#DavidClinton CanadaGovernmentSpending CanadaIncomeTax CanadaTaxRate TheAudit

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Wall Street Clings To Green Coercion As Trump Unleashes American Energy

Published on April 6, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Isaac

The Trump administration’s recent move to revoke Biden-era restrictions on energy development in Alaska’s North Slope—especially in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—is a long-overdue correction that prioritizes American prosperity and energy security. This regulatory reset rightly acknowledges what Alaska’s Native communities have long known: responsible energy development offers a path to economic empowerment and self-determination.

But while Washington’s red tape may be unraveling, a more insidious blockade remains firmly in place: Wall Street.

Despite the Trump administration’s restoration of rational permitting processes, major banks and insurance companies continue to collude in starving projects of the capital and risk management services they need. The left’s “debanking” strategy—originally a tactic to pressure gun makers and disfavored industries—is now being weaponized against American energy companies operating in ANWR and similar regions.

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This quiet embargo began years ago, when JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, declared in 2020 that it would no longer fund oil and gas development in the Arctic, including ANWR. Others quickly followed: Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup now all reject Arctic energy projects—effectively shutting down access to capital for an entire region.

Insurers have joined the pile-on. Swiss Re, AIG, and AXIS Capital all publicly stated they would no longer insure drilling in ANWR. In 2023, Chubb became the first U.S.-based insurer to formalize its Arctic ban.

These policies are not merely misguided—they are dangerous. They hand America’s energy future over to OPEC, China, and hostile regimes. They reduce competition, drive up prices, and kneecap the very domestic production that once made the U.S. energy independent.

This isn’t just a theoretical concern. I’ve experienced this discrimination firsthand.

In February 2025, The Hartford notified the American Energy Institute—an educational nonprofit I lead—that it would not renew our insurance policy. The reason? Not risk. Not claims. Not underwriting. The Hartford cited our Facebook page.

“The reason for nonrenewal is we have learned from your Facebook page that your operations include Trade association involved in promoting social/political causes related to energy production. This is not an acceptable exposure under The Hartford’s Small Commercial business segment’s guidelines.”

That’s a direct quote from their nonrenewal notice.

Let’s be clear: The Hartford didn’t drop us for anything we did—they dropped us for what we believe. Our unacceptable “exposure” is telling the truth about the importance of affordable and reliable energy to modern life, and standing up to ESG orthodoxy. We are being punished not for risk, but for advocacy.

This is financial discrimination, pure and simple. What we’re seeing is the private-sector enforcement of political ideology through the strategic denial of access to financial services. It’s ESG—Environmental, Social, and Governance—gone full Orwell.

Banks, insurers, and asset managers may claim these decisions are about “climate risk,” but they rarely apply the same scrutiny to regimes like Venezuela or China, where environmental and human rights abuses are rampant. The issue is not risk. The issue is control.

By shutting out projects in ANWR, Wall Street ensures that even if federal regulators step back, their ESG-aligned agenda still moves forward—through corporate pressure, shareholder resolutions, and selective financial access. This is how ideology replaces democracy.

While the Trump administration deserves praise for removing federal barriers, the fight for energy freedom continues. Policymakers must hold financial institutions accountable for ideological discrimination and protect access to banking and insurance services for all lawful businesses.

Texas has already taken steps by divesting from anti-energy financial firms. Other states should follow, enforcing anti-discrimination laws and leveraging state contracts to ensure fair treatment.

But public pressure matters too. Americans need to know what’s happening behind the curtain of ESG. The green financial complex is not just virtue-signaling—it’s a form of economic coercion designed to override public policy and undermine U.S. sovereignty.

The regulatory shackles may be coming off, but the private-sector blockade remains. As long as banks and insurers collude to deny access to capital and risk protection for projects in ANWR and beyond, America’s energy independence will remain under threat.

We need to call out this hypocrisy. We need to expose it. And we need to fight it—before we lose not just our energy freedom, but our economic prosperity.

The Honorable Jason Isaac is the Founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

Automotive

Tesla Vandals Keep Running Into The Same Problem … Cameras

Published on April 6, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hudson Crozier

People damaging Teslas in anger toward their owners and Elon Musk aren’t picking up on the fact that the vehicles have multiple cameras capable of catching them in the act.

At least nine perpetrators have been caught on video keying, writing graffiti or otherwise defacing Tesla vehicles in parking lots across the U.S. in the month of March alone. Most have led to an arrest or warrant based partly on the footage, which Tesla’s “Sentry Mode” automatically films from the side of the unattended vehicle when it detects human activity nearby.

“Smile, you’re on camera,” Tesla warned in a March 20 X post about its Sentry Mode feature. Musk’s company has been working to upgrade Sentry Mode so that the vehicles will soon blast music at full volume when vandals attack it. The camera system, however, has not stopped an increasing number of vandals from singling out Tesla owners, usually in protest of Musk’s work in the Trump administration for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

One incident happened on March 29, the same day leftists coordinated protests around the country for a “Global Day of Action” against Musk. That Saturday also saw alleged instances of violence at protests. The demonstrations stemmed from an online call to action by groups such as the Disruption Project, which encourages activists to foment “uprisings,” find a “target’s” home address and other confrontational tactics.

Tesla’s press team did not respond to a request for comment.

One man allegedly caught on camera keying a Tesla SUV on March 24 apologized to the owner who confronted him in a parking lot in Pennsylvania, police and media reports said. The man faces charges of criminal mischief, harassment and disorderly conduct for allegedly carving a swastika onto the vehicle.

“I have nothing against your car, and I have nothing against you,” the suspect said while the owner filmed him in the parking lot. “Obviously, I have something against Elon Musk.” The man called his own behavior “misguided.”

The defendant’s lawyer told Fox News his “client is a proud father, long-time resident, and is currently undergoing cancer treatment” and that he would not comment publicly “pending the outcome of the case.”

One of the most aggressive acts caught by Sentry Mode was in the case of a man who drove an ATV-style vehicle into a Tesla on March 25. Texas police identified the man as Demarqeyun Marquize Cox, arrested him and said he allegedly gave two other nearby Teslas the same treatment while also writing “Elon” on them. The public defender office representing Cox did not respond to a voicemail from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Tesla cameras also caught three other people in Florida, Texas and Arizona keying and smearing bubble gum on the vehicles in March. The three suspects named by police do not have attorneys listed in county records available for contact.

Many of the vandalism cases since Trump’s return have reportedly caused thousands of dollars in damage for individual owners. For example, the bubble gum incident in Florida brought $2,623.66 in costs, while another keying incident in Minnesota brought $3,200.

Some reported attacks on Tesla vehicles and chargers have gotten the attention of federal law enforcement, including cases of alleged firebombing or shooting.

Two other suspected vandals in New York, one in Minnesota and one in Mississippi have reportedly avoided arrest for now — with one owner declining to press charges — but were all seen on the Teslas’ cameras scratching up the vehicles. Police identified the Mississippi suspect as an illegal migrant from Cuba.

One Tesla owner in North Dakota ridiculed a man who allegedly carved the letter “F” into his Cybertruck in a Costco parking lot — as seen on the Cybertruck’s camera. The defendant faces charges of criminal mischief, and county records say he is representing himself in court.

“I can’t believe this guy is potentially ruining his life to follow a political ideology,” the owner told WDAY News.

“If you’re going to vandalize these vehicles, you’re going to get caught,” the owner said.