Last night the condo Board of Directors had a relatively ad hoc meeting to discuss a number of issues that we wanted to tackle before the next scheduled meeting. One of those issues is the set of bylaws that govern our condominiums - we’re looking to go through them and possibly revamp some of them.
I got volunteered for it. As in, “Kirk, you’re going to be on it.” Yes ma’am. Not that I’ve ever had to revamp bylaws before, ever. Although this time it won’t be a complete rewrite (and that’s good, too, because we’re looking at far more than 14 pages of bylaws).
Sadly, I still have all 5 working drafts, including the final Grebel constitution that was passed in 2004, on my computer.
30.Mar.07 
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I just watched closing remarks for the committee for Bill C-30… It gets presented to the House tomorrow, but let me summarize the CPC’s position on it
Brian Jean (CPC):
This piece of legislation is flawed… This is not a good bill… This is about politics…
This bill will not [clean air and reduce greenhouse gases]
Cry, ‘havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war
Edit: The EFM is at 92%.
Edit 2: It looks like C-30’s been left off the Projected Order of Business for the week of April 16th. So likely it will be later than that week. Also, there are rumours that the Feds are considering a 45-day election campaign…
29.Mar.07 Uncategorized Read more Comments (3)
I find it humourous that already on the Election Prediction Project’s subpage for Calgary West that they are calling it an Anders victory. While I won’t dispute that I have a tough road ahead of me, we’ve seen what can happen when people vote against the main contenders. Of course, I’m sure none of the people predicting that even know that an Independent is going to throw a wrench in the riding…
EPP knows. Did you notice that with all the Anders predictions, EPP has set the prediction at ‘Too close to call’? Even though it did not do so with some other ridings, like Calgary Southwest (Harper’s riding)?
28.Mar.07 Uncategorized Read more Comments (0)
Jack Layton is proposing that taxpayers be given a rebate if they file online. The part of me that does the taxes (read that as ‘Robyn’. This is because mathematicians like me don’t use numbers. What are numbers? all I know is the government owes me epsilon…), having filed them online since pretty much netfile was introduced, says “yay. more credits.”
This, of course, makes sense when you think of the government’s savings when you file electronically. According to this paper, which quotes this report by Accenture, which cites a government study, says that the transaction cost between filing by mail and electronically is somewhere around $37. That’s like, 25 Double-doubles!
According to Statscan, 15% of Internet users use the net to file taxes online. Consider that for a moment. If the difference between mail and internet is $37, and the gov’t were to give a $10 credit to every person who files online, that’s still a $27 surplus. Then consider that, according to Statscan, in 2005, 72% of households had computers with 64% having an Internet connection at home.
30 million people, 64% online, 85% of which do not yet file their taxes online yet, at $27/person. Hell, for posterity, let’s say only 15 million of those pay taxes. The government surplus is… well… $220M.
However, an interesting point is brought up. 64% of households, as of 2005, had an Internet connection. A sheer third of Canadians could not receive the benefit unless there was some place for them to file their taxes online that is not their house. You could set up government kiosks, but now you have the potential for drastic security issues. Not to say there would be, but how many non-computer owning Canadians are going to bring their T4s down to some Federal building and waste half the afternoon on a Tax kiosk? Really.
So here’s the point I want to make. From the standpoint of Internet-savvy John Q Taxpayer, and the Government of Canada, the finances of such a plan make sense. But for the third that do not have that access, it’s a benefit that they don’t get. And I’m going to venture a guess here that a large portion of the people who tend not to have computers in their homes and Internet available, or who cannot afford tax software like Quicktax, are the ones who need that $10 most.
That said, it’s still not a bad idea. I would be interested to see research done into whether this would, in fact, encourage Canadians to file online, and what would be done with those that cannot file online for whatever reason…
27.Mar.07 Uncategorized Read more Comments (5)
