Skip to contentPosts
“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
And in a modern society there are many different forms of taxation, each with their own rationale and purpose. While it would be impractical to address all the concerns with taxation, one that stands out is excise taxation of items deemed harmful to society.
The claim is that this tax is levied to pay for the damage caused to society as well as used as a way to raise prices in an effort to reduce use. Walking through the aisles of an Ontario grocery store you are bound to come across cases of beer. You are impressed right up until the point where you realize that the “beer” is actually de-alcolized, and has an ABV of only 0.5%. What makes this deal just that much worse is that the price of a 24 pack of cans is about$16, much less that what you would pay for a 24 pack of alcoholic beer. In an attempt to generate support for the upcoming election the Ontario Liberal Party is proposing changes to the liqour control legislation in Ontario so that alcoholic products could be purchased at convenient stores. While this might seem like a purely political maneuver considering the Liberals have so far failed to tackle the issue since taking office in 2003, the issue of changing how people purchase their Alcohol in Ontario is still something that needs to be addressed.