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A Canadian payroll dependency chart

daemonology.net

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Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#131

Post by jeffrallen »

Would be interesting to have a constitutional requirement on government to be able to explain taxes to citizens in a declarative language with a max complexity of N bits of information.

Railroad unions: you want an exemption for your members? Write a diff and go to war with hedge fund managers to get the bits you need to implement your boondoggle. :)

I'm reminded of the "delta this build causes in bytes of flashrom" reports you see at the bottom of a compile job on embedded platforms.

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#132

Post by p_j_w »

cperciva wrote: post #33
narrator wrote: post #18

Being someone who has some experience with tax law, the cycle of tax complexity goes like this: 1. Tax law is passed. 2. Really smart CPAs and Tax Lawyers figure out ways to legally avoid paying taxes. 3. Tax people issue regulations intended to close those loopholes. 4. Administrations change and they want to win votes and tweak the economy so they lower some taxes and add tax breaks. 5. New administration comes in…

None of this complexity is from trying to plug tax loopholes. Most of it is from politicians wanting to name things. For example, for decades Canada has had a "personal amount" tax credit -- for arcane reasons, rather than saying "the first $X of income isn't taxed", the lowest tax bracket starts at $0 but there's a non-refundable credit equal to the lowest tax rate times $X. Then a politician came along and said "we…

>Both of those examples could have simply been implemented as tax brackets but voters get far more excited about a "Tax Reduction" than they do about a new tax bracket.

Doesn't sound like the problem is entirely on the politicians here.

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#133

Post by FpUser »

mmastrac wrote: post #4

It's a shame that we don't have open formulas in code form published by the government. The only way that I know how to do this reliably is using the web form provided by the CRA here: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/e-services/... As you can imagine, doing this by hand is quite painful and error-prone.

Same here. I just take the form

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#134

Post by j45 »

mmastrac wrote: post #4

It's a shame that we don't have open formulas in code form published by the government. The only way that I know how to do this reliably is using the web form provided by the CRA here: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/e-services/... As you can imagine, doing this by hand is quite painful and error-prone.

It could be a github repo.

There are likely some digital government projects and software providers who's software might be a good fit for this kind of thing.

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#135

Post by p_j_w »

switchbak wrote: post #110
munk-a wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well transfer payments are a lot more complicated than some folks would have you believe - Canada as a nation benefits from all our parts being within a common business zone so while some areas are mineral rich other areas have strong service economies that have needed help through the pandemic.

"Needed help" because the powers of the day decided to lock down the economy far past any reasonable length of time. I suppose if I quit my job I "need help" feeding myself too. Another example is Quebec sitting on a gargantuan natural gas reserve, but preferring to keep it in the ground because it's more advantageous to simply receive payments from other provinces (Alberta). Carbon/emission considerations aside, thi…

>Carbon/emission considerations aside

This seems like a massive thing to just throw aside.

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#136

Post by j45 »

Topgamer7 wrote: post #74
mmastrac wrote: post #4

It's a shame that we don't have open formulas in code form published by the government. The only way that I know how to do this reliably is using the web form provided by the CRA here: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/e-services/... As you can imagine, doing this by hand is quite painful and error-prone.

I want something similar for my mortgage calculation. For example I cannot get my bank (TD Canada) to inform me of how much each payment goes towards my principal. I'm pretty sure I've calculated it properly, however the number is often in the 10's of dollars off from what the bank reports my outstanding balance is after a payment is made. Also don't get me started that I can't use an api to get my account details an…

While open banking is on it's way in Canada it still might be a few years until the API is available.

Mortgage Calculators are sadly something that appear to need to be build by hand in Excel

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#137

Post by j45 »

cachvico wrote: post #124
Topgamer7 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want something similar for my mortgage calculation. For example I cannot get my bank (TD Canada) to inform me of how much each payment goes towards my principal. I'm pretty sure I've calculated it properly, however the number is often in the 10's of dollars off from what the bank reports my outstanding balance is after a payment is made. Also don't get me started that I can't use an api to get my account details an…

Also don't get me started that I can't use an api to get my account details and statements in Canada. Anyone know if there's any ongoing effort to this effect - i.e. to force banks to implement a common API for querying data held in their accounts? A brief search reveals that Canada is of course missing from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_banking

Canada is working on Open Banking from what information is out there - although it will be important to confirm that the Canadian interpretation of Open Banking is the same or compatible with other nations, which in no way is guaranteed just because it's called the same thing.

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#138

Post by jessriedel »

cperciva wrote: post #33
narrator wrote: post #18

Being someone who has some experience with tax law, the cycle of tax complexity goes like this: 1. Tax law is passed. 2. Really smart CPAs and Tax Lawyers figure out ways to legally avoid paying taxes. 3. Tax people issue regulations intended to close those loopholes. 4. Administrations change and they want to win votes and tweak the economy so they lower some taxes and add tax breaks. 5. New administration comes in…

None of this complexity is from trying to plug tax loopholes. Most of it is from politicians wanting to name things. For example, for decades Canada has had a "personal amount" tax credit -- for arcane reasons, rather than saying "the first $X of income isn't taxed", the lowest tax bracket starts at $0 but there's a non-refundable credit equal to the lowest tax rate times $X. Then a politician came along and said "we…

> None of this complexity is from trying to plug tax loopholes. Most of it is from politicians wanting to name things.

The effect you describe is very real, but "loop hole closure" is certainly a source of complexity too, e.g., the US's insane alternative minimum tax (AMT), which nearly duplicates the amount of tax work to be done by insisting you compute your taxes under a second set of assumptions. The idea was to make sure people who were using "loopholes" (or just like, reasonable features of the tax system) to pay at least above a certain amount.

Of course, the sane solution would have been to choose tax policies that combine together reasonably. As always, loopholes (in the sense of "unjustly low" amounts of tax) are much more likely to be created rather than fixed by complexity.

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#139

Post by jeffrallen »

sidcool wrote: post #129

How does one even begin Designing a software system for such a complex process! The impact of a bug in such system would be huge!!

I once spent an hour removing a few cents' error in a salary-computation and then 2 weeks implementing the correct one-time payment to 200 staff in order to make them whole from a couple years of incorrect salaries. The whole thing cost about $2000, so each individual adjustment was small, but we had to do it with transparency and humility to maintain worker happiness.

Re: A Canadian payroll dependency chart

#140

Post by j45 »

ipaddr wrote: post #99
Topgamer7 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want something similar for my mortgage calculation. For example I cannot get my bank (TD Canada) to inform me of how much each payment goes towards my principal. I'm pretty sure I've calculated it properly, however the number is often in the 10's of dollars off from what the bank reports my outstanding balance is after a payment is made. Also don't get me started that I can't use an api to get my account details an…

What is your mortgage amount and what is rate? Say your mortgage is 300,000 and rate 5%. You would pay 15,000 in interest. Subtract from your total yearly payment say 25,000. You pay back 10,000 a year divide by 12 for months or payment period to get the amount.

Canadian mortgages are a bit different than the US.

First, they renew their interest rates every 5 years over a 20-30-40 mortgage. Think of it as mandatory refinancing.

Unlike the US where a homeowner can lock in a low interest rate for a very long time.

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