Surviving The Fall, 5

Gentle Reader, one of the biggest challenges that often faces me is the importance of maintaining that delicate balance between integrity and necessity. Sometimes, the best way to keep your head above water is to go with the current. Other times, that will be the quickest route to death by drowning. Our taxation system and its impact on low income Canadians is such a challenge. I just received horrible news from the Canada Revenue Agency that I owe them a very large sum this year. Now, I am not going to disclose my annual income on these pages as that is the Eighth Deadly Sin: Thou shalt not tell others how much money thou dost earn. Or something like that. Well, I've basically broken this rule over and over again, so I will give you a ballpark figure. I have never earned as much as twenty thousand dollars in a year, and often significantly less. This year, the government wants for me well in excess of a thousand, and most of this is for Canada Pension contributions, as I am a contractor, making it my responsibility to pay up every year. This is onerous and it is of course unfair. When you consider all the tax breaks and loopholes for high income earners, it seems like absolute mean-spirited sadism and cruelty for our government to go after its poorest citizens to pay up. There are things that I need in my apartment that I keep having to put off, because I can't spare the funds: a couple of new chairs, a new bedspread, and a new rug, for instance. One of my chairs has become rather wobbly and unsafe, another has lost a leg and is propped up by phone books. My bedspread has a saucer-sized hole worn into it, and the only way I can disguise it is by covering it with a folded blanket. My rug has several holes worn in it and I am able to disguise it by turning it around and covering it with strategically positioned furniture. I also need a proper desk, one with drawers. None of these extravagances are in my purview, and now that the government must have their pound of flesh, this is even less likely. Fortunately, my place still looks decent and presentable, even though knowing the flaws makes me feel somewhat deceitful for covering and disguising. I of course overreacted, panicked and became toxically angry when I got my notice of assessment, and this has totally wrecked my sleep (for all you mouth breathers who want to tell me to just put it out of my mind and get over it, please just drop on your pointed little head and swivel. I am a trauma survivor and stuff that you can drown out of existence with craft beer and pot aren't that easy for some of us to just shake off, and unlike you I don't have a substance dependency!) Back to my tax bill. I have decided that I`m going to pay up. In full. And for a couple of reasons. First of all, I can afford it. I have enough in my savings account to easily cover another month long vacation in Costa Rica next year, after tax expenses. My bottom line is going to be okay. I still might have to live a little more frugally than usual, but I'm pretty good at this already. I also had a financial head start, bringing back from my vacation two months ago more than $1200, which I have been living on since coming home, and waiting as my work earnings pile up in my chequing account. I was also gifted with a large quantity of Costa Rican coffee, and I am spending less in other sectors. I'll be okay. I also want to pay my share, having done rather well over the years on the public largess. Now I can start giving back. My other motive? To shame those whining rich multi-million dollar home owners in my city who are screaming and crying that they are now expected to pay a measly extra .2 percent on housing value that is above three million dollars, and that is only on the difference after three million, and .4 percent on the difference after four million. From the angry and self-pitying signs on some of the front lawns I saw yesterday while walking in one of those neighbourhoods, one would imagine that next week they are going to have to stand in line at the food bank! And please don't bore me with that drivel that they worked hard for their lovely homes and lovely high incomes. I have also had to work hard all my life, like every other low income Canadian, but not everyone gets to cash in on their efforts, so maybe spare a thought for those of us who work hard and stay poor. There are more people like me in this country than our government would like to admit. Am I going to suffer from this expenditure. Maybe a bit, but I still have everything I need, and I still get a holiday thrown in. Better off folk can look down their pitying, sneering noses all they want, but I have something that they don't, and I can suggest one of many words to describe what I have that they are lacking: integrity.