If you have to pay taxes which most of us do, then some consolation can be taken if it’s known that you are going to benefit from this money. As we talked about in the Federal taxes we outlined where most of that money goes.

When you do your yearly tax return, it includes your tax obligations to the province. For Torontonians their provincial tax pertains to the province of Ontario. Although the Federal government collects the taxes for the province, the money does go back to the Province where the Parliament in Ottawa deems what the dollars will be spent on. Much like the Federal tax system.

While we enjoy many of the services that the Federal Government is responsible for providing the Provincial Government often has to add dollars to these services as their fair share. Plus each province has its own distinct obligations to attend to like its internal provincial services and infrastructure.

Here is where the problem lies though. Each province varies in size and economics. Not all provinces are able to generate enough tax revenue to sustain their individual needs. The Governmental solution to this was equalization. Meaning that the Provincial government would dole out a bigger share of money to those provinces who were in this poor tax generating position.

When we as Torontonians think about taxes, we mostly think about our personal income tax. Perhaps because we see this big chunk of money for some that comes off their pay every payday. We have to remember that we also pay out tax money by way of sales tax and property tax, and a whole gambit of others, depending on our personal situation.

While it is important to understand what happens to our tax dollars right from the top down, meaning from the Federal level to the Provincial level, this carries down to our specific city, which in our case is Toronto. Our city council is responsible for spending our dollars wisely. You may be taking a look around and asking just where are those Provincial tax Canada dollars going? How beneficial they are to you personally will totally depend on your needs and your lifestyle.

For example, all of us benefit from our Toronto Police services, and they get paid for their services from our tax dollars. In fact they are one of our biggest expenditures. However, a lot of the expenditures are paid from other types of taxes collected as well. For the tax dollars that pertain to your provincial tax they mostly relate to the capital budget expenditures.

Often one of the biggest arguments that filter down from the provinces to the cities is that each jurisdiction doesn’t feel that they are receiving their fair share of the tax dollars generated. As individual tax payers our beef is that we feel that we are virtually being taxed to death. Everything we turn around it seems that there is some tax to be paid on something.

There is no getting around the fact that we have to pay at least some type of Canada tax, our best recourse as Torontonians is to use resources such as Toronto accountants to ensure that we are at least getting all of the tax breaks and benefits that we may be entitled to as individuals.