Death & Taxes

Speaking of taxes, have you ever seen those ads claiming that you don't have to pay them? It's a claim most often made by oddball American groups, but it is being made in Canada now, too. It would be lovely if it were true, but as retired Ottawa schoolteacher Thomas Kennedy found out last week, it isn't. Kennedy, represented by Calgarian David Lindsay, argued the Income Tax Act only applies to corporations, not natural persons, that income tax is voluntary and that as such he should be exempt from paying it and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board should give him the money that had been deducted from his pay.

Not only did Kennedy lose the case, Justice G. Gordon Sedgewick ordered him to pay $500 in costs to the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. Trust us, thousands upon thousands of accountants pore over the Income Tax Act every year and if there was a loophole which stated - hey, you only have to pay taxes if you feel like it or if you are a corporation - they would have spotted it.

Notes: No name on this little ditty as published on page 7 of The Ottawa Sun on Sunday, September 17, 2000. Same error as Jonathan Chevreau. Dave Lindsay is from Edmonton not Calgary.

Whoever wrote the story mispelled "pore." It should be spelled "pour."