Dear Editor:
RE: Religious are generous, March 21.
Jan Kaikkonen was certainly right in her comments about the benefits of a church environment, and it made me think of the charitable tax credit we can get by making donations to our places of worship and other charities.
But, if you make a $1,000 donation to your church or other charity and another $1,000 donation to a political party, the tax credit for the charitable donation is smaller than the tax credit for the political donation.
I don’t know why the pencil pushers in Ottawa who created the political tax credit decided on such a generous allowance, but I don’t think it’s fair.
The solution of course is to bring the political tax credit in line with the charitable tax credit by reducing the former to line up with the latter. If we hone in on places of worship again as an example, it should not be more profitable for you to make a donation to your favourite politicians than it is to your God.
Now, how quickly do you think any politician is going to act on this?
This credit should never have been introduced as generous as it is, but no politician is going to be anxious to reduce it. I wrote a letter to my MP last fall about it, but haven’t heard anything back on the issue.
I would like to see one of the parties adopt this issue for the upcoming election. But I won’t hold my breath to see it.
John McVicar,
Listowel