Juno News - December 02, 2020


It’s not a tax on Netflix, it’s a tax on us


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

210.88806

Word count

1,033

Sentence count

61

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The government wants to introduce a new tax on Netflix, but it's not a tax on them. What's the difference between a Netflix tax and a corporate tax? And why does it matter if you're watching Netflix or not?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 So let's talk about the Netflix tax that we're all going to be paying because I think there's
00:00:08.640 a lot of misdirection and blurring of lines by the government. I'm going to pull up what
00:00:13.060 Chrystia Friedland said about this in the house and we'll see if we can't figure out what is
00:00:17.220 wrong here. Now she said, quote, Canadians want a tax system that is fair, where everyone pays
00:00:22.500 their fair share, so the government has the resources it needs to invest in people and keep
00:00:26.580 our economy strong. That is why we are moving ahead with implementing GST slash HST on multinational
00:00:32.080 digital giants and limiting stock options deductions in the largest companies. Okay, so let's break
00:00:37.280 that down sentence by sentence and see where she is blurring the line. Canadians want a tax system 1.00
00:00:41.880 that is fair. Agreed. Everyone pays their fair share. Okay, that's a really loaded term in many
00:00:47.680 ways, but let's just go with it. Fine, fair taxes, fair system, you know, no loopholes, no offshoring,
00:00:52.520 fine. Okay, let's just say that that's just what it means. So the government has the resources it
00:00:56.560 needs to invest in people and keep our economy strong. So okay, clearly, she's talking about
00:01:01.060 the government's income, the government's balance sheet, the government needs income to then spend
00:01:05.440 on on programs. And so she's talking about the tax system being fair. So the government has the money
00:01:10.860 it needs to spend. So it's going to basically be a redirection of wealth. But that's what a government
00:01:15.600 does. So that's not again, not necessarily at issue. But she's focusing specifically on that.
00:01:21.220 Here's the rub, though. That is why we're moving ahead with implementing GST slash HST on
00:01:25.920 multinational digital giants. Okay, the only problem, though, is you're not implementing
00:01:30.300 GST or HST on the actual digital giants companies like Netflix, you're not implementing a tax on
00:01:36.060 them, you're actually putting a tax on people who use this service. Now, if you've ever owned a
00:01:41.980 business or done accounting for a business, you'll know what I'm talking about. Let's just say that the
00:01:46.120 tax rate is 10%. If you then sell something for $10, you're going to charge them 10%. It's a buck. So now
00:01:52.880 they're paying $11. So what happens to that $1, the $1 of tax that was collected? Well, you know,
00:01:59.060 let's not worry about the company's accounting sheet. But generally, unless they have some special
00:02:02.360 deductions, they're basically collecting that dollar, and then they're remitting it to the
00:02:06.400 government. So they're giving it to the government. They're simply acting like the bag man for the
00:02:10.600 government. The company itself, though, does not pay a penny out of that money. They have their own
00:02:15.820 costs, they have their own profits. And that all comes from the original $10. That $1 is a tax paid by
00:02:22.880 the consumer of this product, which is then simply being remitted to the government. And here's where
00:02:27.440 the blurring of lines or the intentional misdirection comes. The way that this is being
00:02:32.320 framed makes it sound like it is a tax on Netflix, that Netflix, the company itself, will be paying
00:02:38.360 this money. Now, there's a line here about limiting stock options deductions. And there may be some other
00:02:43.280 taxes that they want to put on companies like Netflix if they have Canadian operations. But those are
00:02:48.460 very, very different things, putting a corporate tax, or limiting the ways that shareholders in the
00:02:53.320 company or owners of a company can take profits from themselves. That is entirely different than
00:02:58.520 putting a tax on a product or service. Because again, the tax is ultimately paid by the individual.
00:03:04.580 Now, this combined with the fact that we're talking about everyone paying their fair share,
00:03:09.080 she's really just talking about people in essence, people who watch Netflix, that they have to pay their
00:03:13.900 share fair. If you're not watching Netflix, if you're watching Netflix, and you're not paying tax,
00:03:18.240 you're not paying your fair share. Now, that's every single person in Canada who has a Netflix
00:03:22.920 account has nothing to do with rich or poor. Everyone who has a Netflix account is not paying
00:03:27.220 their fair share, which is what this statement actually really means. Now, this is again, something
00:03:32.800 you might feel is justified, you might say, Okay, I think that Netflix and other services like this
00:03:37.680 should be taxed, you know, maybe Amazon, Airbnb, other services who are selling products or services
00:03:43.020 online that are not located in Canada that I'm not paying taxes on. And there's a number of them
00:03:47.960 that I'm sure you and I purchase on a regular basis. But that is an entirely separate discussion
00:03:53.040 and an entirely different thing than to say that people are not paying their fair share and that
00:03:58.060 framing it as this tax is going to be levied on Netflix, because ultimately, it's going to be just
00:04:03.320 a tax for you and for me. So if the government puts a 10% tax on Netflix, whatever you're paying
00:04:08.080 for your Netflix subscription, you're going to pay 10% more to the government, Netflix is going to do
00:04:12.380 nothing except have some additional accounting fees, perhaps for determining how much money
00:04:16.860 they're going to owe the government at the end of the day. But ultimately, it is a tax on you,
00:04:20.580 it is a tax on me, there's a tax on every single person in this country that watches and pays for
00:04:25.280 Netflix, it is not a tax on the company itself for them to pay GST and HST. And we should not let
00:04:30.720 this thing be framed as such, because that is definitely wrong. And it is an intentional misdirection
00:04:35.720 on Chrystia Friedland's part. So hope you learned something about GST and HST if you didn't know it
00:04:40.180 already. But I'm sure a lot of you are already smart and small business owners. But I hope you
00:04:44.660 did learn something. And you know, a lot of stuff to definitely think about. So thank you so much
00:04:49.240 for watching. For TrueNorth, I am Sam Ashkenazi. Don't forget to subscribe and have yourself a great
00:04:53.320 great day. Take care.