In one of its year-end reviews, The Financial Post wrote of the emergence of a new generation of North Americans – Generation T, where T stands for tax. Paul Vieira of The Post explains:
This group can be described as young Americans, maybe aged 16 to 30, stuck with forking over higher taxes to pay off the debt legislators built up in the years leading up to the great recession, and then allowed to swell substantially in a bid to save the economy from disaster.
The American members of Generation T are likely to be hit with taxes their parents were lucky enough to avoid. Among the types they will get quite acquainted with is the VAT, or value-added tax. Think Canada’s GST on a U.S. scale.
So, the scenario is such that debt will drive taxes:
A rebound in the global economy is set to kick off the beginning of the next decade. But this return to growth will be accompanied by a surge of another sort — in the amount you, the taxpayer, are about to pay to government.
The great global recession exacerbated the state of budget balances in much of the developed world. The debt burden among Group of 20 nations is expected to rise to over 120% of GDP, up from roughly 80% before the onset of the recession.
Read the whole of the article at:
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2380752
The equation we must all remember here is that larger government equals more taxes. Nothing is free – and, certainly, the costs of government programs and services must ultimately be paid by its citizens (and, as is in this case, by the future generation(s)).
