— Musings —09.08.2011 05:32 PM
The Ontario PC tax-fighter ain’t a tax-payer, seems!
High profile Ontario Conservative Randy Hillier has built his political career as an outsider fighting against big government, but that may extend beyond policy.
CTV has obtained public documents showing that Hillier and his wife are in a long-running dispute with Canada Revenue Agency over unpaid taxes. The government has placed two liens on his home.
Hillier, who is seeking re-election in Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington, is a politician who is never boring and always blunt.
He staged a two-day sit-in at the provincial legislature in December 2009 over the lack of public hearings on the HST.
Documents from the provincial land registry, which are available to the public, show the government placed two liens on property owned by Hillier and his wife more than a year ago.
One of the liens is $9,017. The other is $5,863.
Don’t know how credible this new poll is, but if so, Ontarians are indeed waking up to Hillier and Hudak’s tax party nonsense: http://ontarionewswatch.com/archive.html?id=39499
“A newly released Harris-Decima poll shows Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario Liberals have an 11 point lead over Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives – the first time the governing party has bested it’s main rival in many months.
The Ontario poll has the Liberals in the lead at 43 per cent, the PC’s with 31 per cent, the NDP at 21 and the Green Party trailing with five per cent.
The 43 per cent support for the Liberals, if accurate, puts the party in majority government territory. The double-digit lead marks the first time the Liberals have placed before the PC’s in months and may indicate a significant turnaround in the direction of the campaign. The race has been seen as Mr. Hudak’s to lose for over a year.“
Beats me. I just know we intend to keep working like we are way, way behind.
That’s an impressive result. I can’t see the PCs overcoming that lead, barring a complete explosion/meltdown by McGuinty (and I don’t see that happening — McG looks very disciplined and collected, running a classic incumbent’s campaign).
Keep your eyes on the prize!
Interesting news organization. The people who run it seem somewhat… familiar.
How tea partyish of him.
I really wonder whether most people who would be inclined to consider voting for Hillier in the first place would look negatively on him for this. I suspect that for many of them, the impact of this information would be neutral, or even be seen as a point in his favour. For a lot of people in this country, scrapping with CRA is practically seen as a badge of honour. CRA is probably the most unopular government agency in the country.
Only to right wingers.
That’s kinda what I was saying, although I’m sure that loathing of CRA is the exclusive preserve of right-wingers. I work alongside tax practitioners, so I know of what I speak.
I’d have more sympathy for him if he didn’t happen to be paid $116,550.00 as an MPP. There are a lot of people making a lot less than that who manage to pay their taxes.
The fact that CRA has put a tax lien on you doesn’t necessarily mean you haven’t paid your taxes, period. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you haven’t paid any taxes. It may mean, e.g., that you’ve paid quite a considerable amount in taxes, but CRA has decided that you should have paid more. It could mean there’s a dispute over a single item, e.g., a discrete transaction in which you and CRA disagree about the tax treatment. There are a zillion different possibilities here.
Filling in for Gord tonight, are you?
He made a valid point. Gord would have just said that Randy shouldn’t have to pay taxes because they restrict his freedom, or some bullshit like that.
Only to free loaders.
So only “free loaders” dislike or diss CRA; everyone else loves CRA and never has a bad thing to say about them.
That sounds like an interesting alternate universe you live in.
If Randy Hillier didn’t exist, some Liberal would have invented him.
There’s enough Randy Hilliers around, the Liberals don’t have to.
My my my. I wonder how CTV found out about that.
I wonder.
Randy’s pissed off a lot of people, and it’s payback time. There won’t be any problem getting multiple sources for confirmation. It’s just beginning, you realize. Randy is what we call in my biz “lossy”.
The liberals did not create randy or Black jack MacLaren. Just ask Norm Sterling and Ernie Eves !!
I’m forgetting that the’re liberals now too.
but if he’s a “tax-fighter” then wouldn’t u expect him not to pay his taxes?
Warren, you are doing a solid job backing up a solid candidate. Hopefully you get some time out to drink beer and play a bit of rock and roll music with the boys.
Well, yes with expectation of the usual penalties, but not sloughing them off on his wife. This is serious chieken shit behavior from a man.
This happens all the time in tax litigation and enforcement (i.e., implication and involvement of the spouse), because income-splitting is one of the most common and obvious strategies for tax avoidance (which is legal) and evasion (which is not).
According to Hillier, it’s not his fault — it’s his wife’s fault. Did he just throw her under the metaphoric bus?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-election/tax-blunder-puts-hudak-in-an-awkward-spot/article2159754/?from=sec431