Yeargin Discusses Luxury Tax

[NautiqueJeff]

Official Correct Craft Press Release:
Orlando, FL (January 17, 2022) - Correct Craft CEO Bill Yeargin appeared on the BOAT BOSS podcast to discuss the proposed Canadian luxury tax on boats. During the interview Yeargin shared the history of luxury taxes previously implemented around the world, why they don’t work, and why they are harmful to both the workers who build boats and small business owners who sell and service them.

Bill Yeargin, Correct Craft President and CEO stated, “The lessons learned from previous luxury taxes is clear; a lot of countries have implemented them and every single time it fails and is repealed. In the United States, we tried this in the early 90s and thousands of jobs were lost. The U.S. luxury tax actually created a revenue deficit for the federal government, so it was repealed quickly."

Yeargin added, “The proposed Canadian luxury tax will clearly have a negative effect, hurting small Canadian businesses the most. I hope people will help us share the past lessons, so we don’t have to repeat them.”

To learn more, listen to Bill Yeargin’s short interview on the BOAT BOSS podcast. Click here to listen.

About Correct Craft: Celebrating 97 years of excellence in the marine industry, Correct Craft is a Florida-based company with global operations. Focused on “Making Life Better,” the Correct Craft family includes Nautique, Centurion, Supreme, Bass Cat, Yar-Craft, SeaArk, Parker, and Bryant boat companies, Pleasurecraft Marine Engine Group, Watershed Innovation and Aktion Parks. For more information please visit www.correctcraft.com.

[bturner]

Having owned a cottage and spending a great deal of time in Canada for the past 30 years during the summers (excluding the last 2 due to the vid) one observation I can make is Canadians love their government programs. These programs in turn demand the creation of revenue generation typically through taxes aimed at the demonization of various sins or SJ targets to pay for them. We saw this over the years with booze, cigarettes', fuel, cottages, or whatever you can imagine. Basically pick something you can demonize and Canada will tax it in the name of social justice. GST/ HST, carbon taxes and recycling fees that are tacked on everything from electronic devices to garbage collection that rarely go to anything they tell you they're for targeted at. I think we had something like 4 different taxes you paid on some products about 6 years ago until they were all combined in to a single GST to simplify the taxes. Mind you the taxes didn't disappear, they just grouped them all together. I think the carbon tax was the latest one just before the vid hit that had the greatest impact for the locals. I bring in all my own gas so I'm basically paying about a $1 less a gallon than buying it in country. I also bartered for services like my lawn service because it was a better deal for both sides over paying cash.

Unfortunately this latest tax is nothing new and just another money grab tax. Labeling it a luxury tax makes it easy to sell to the masses just like a gas guzzler tax which I would expect to see coming on any boat in Canada soon and probably being proposed in the states soon after. I saw recently in Ontario that they are also proposing special taxes on houses over $1M and another that would put a capital gains tax at the time of sale for any property. No big surprise on any of these as Canada (as the US will be doing soon) is looking for ways to pay for all the handouts during the vid.

While this may sound like a politically statement, it is not. At least no more than the article/video. It is just a statement about my experience with how the system works in Canada and will be coming our way soon. Nothing is free in life. someone always has to pay. The closer a country moves the socialism the more you will see a transfer of wealth through tax schemes like all of the above in everything payroll taxes to property and businesses taxes. As Margaret Thatcher said: “Socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money.”