This is not fair not only to me, low income all these years, wife so I was paying my own CPP so his companies didn’t have to, and now I have no severance, no CPP yet, no EI, no severance package, no income since his companies were my only clients, and I have to carry the likes of Millionaires and not just me but every other low income separated less than 365 days consecutively at separate addresses?

Can someone please look in to this ASAP because I have already lost so many benefits just because I married the guy in the first place. First mistake. One of Many. Any suggestions that help solve the problem, that help! really, I would welcome some help for a change. Thank you so much for reading this.

But the bigger problem is one of actual fairness. If you think the tax system is unfair for one class of people with volatile incomes, then it’s unfair for *all* people with volatile incomes, whether they’re artists or entrepreneurs or contractors or pensioners.

(One of the things I hate about this bill is that it’s pulling an Orwellian/Harper trick with its name. It’s not about “Income averaging for artists” or “Helping artists” or even “Raising artists’ after-tax incomes.” By calling it “Tax Fairness for Artists” it automatically frames the debate in terms of people being for or against “fairness” rather that the actual elements of the bill. That doesn’t inspire open and honest debate, as you can see in every part of the post above, especially its title.)

Even if I agree that artists deserve special treatment, I find it hard to see this as the major obstacle to artistic expression and income security you do. The relief can only — by definition — kick in once an artist earns at least $41,000 in a year. The relief is marginal until the artist earns significantly more than that (about $70 for every $1000 that the artist manages to shift to a lower income year). The relief comes in the artist’s high-earning years instead of in their low-earning years. The relief does nothing to improve job prospects or audience interest in the arts.

*(Although, I’d say, if you’re not going to be a professional artist, ie, you’re not basing your income on art, then you shouldn’t need income relief in the form of tax grants for professionals in the sense that you’re discussing it here…)

You make some good points. What is distinctive about many artists, and this by the way is where Richard Florida drives me crazy, is that there are many artistic activities are not driven by profit. Putting on an indie play, making a sculpture, writing a poem, etc. None of the merits of these activities are even judged by how much money they make. The people that do these things live in a capitalist economy – still have to eat food and pay rent and stuff – so income averaging is a tool to encourage these activities.

The Goldsbie example is great one to illuminate the issues sending the bill to committee would have to address. Franco Boni and i programmed his work (as a performance artist?) when he created his project Route 501 for The FreeFall Festival at The Theatre Centre. The hybrid nature of much of our work these days would have been a challenge for this legislation, but never mind cause the bill is in fact dead.

Journalism as an art: Not only are the working conditions of (many if not most) journalists similar to artists, but their outputs are similar, at least in so far as shaping the Canadian cultural landscape and informing, educating, and, yes, entertaining Canadians. Longer-form journalism is often literary. Journalists often publish books, or appear on television programs or in films (even when portraying themselves). Also, since the act seems to allow everyone who appears on screen to call themselves an artist, Peter Mansbridge would count but freelance reporter Jonathan Goldsbie wouldn’t (nor would Kelly Nestruck, come to think of it). I posit that Goldsbie contributes at least as much to the Canadian Cultural landscape as The Comedy Network’s new edition of Match Game. (Goldsbie is the perfect example, by the way, of new journalism moving to an indie arts model. More and more young journalists are not following internships to staff jobs, but instead spending their days reporting on Twitter or for unpaid web sites, hoping to eventually get noticed and land enough freelance piecework to make a living.)

(I’m not even sure that jounalists are excluded from the act, because the language is a bit confusing — the fact that it’s unclear what counts as “artist income” and who counts as an “artist” should be biggest drawbacks on this bill).

But then there’s everyone else who’s excluded. Many would argue athletes have a similar impact on Canadian culture and storytelling (or that they’re at least as important to Canadian culture as, say, Hiccups and Dan For Mayor). Athletes also earn marginal and volatile incomes. Should they be protected as well?

I know that the $0-$200K example is extreme, but really, the people who will benefit most are the most successful artists under this scheme. Quite frankly, Carly Rae Jepsen can afford the taxes she currently owes.

And I’m not implying that artists are lazy sponges for government money. I’m acknowledging that they get government benefits, so they should pay into the government when they’re able. Just like every other person who has a volatile income.

(Need another example of why this was unfair? Say you’re a contractor who earns $60,000/year, but has to take three years off because of a disability. When that contractor returns to work, he doesn’t get to average his income over the three years when he couldn’t work.)

My opinion is that if we’re going to allow income averaging, it has to be an “everyone or no one” option, or else it’s ripe for abuse and charges that it’s unfair.

PS. Artists typically can’t access EI because they *don’t* pay into it. EI is funded through its own premiums, not general revenue. Self-employed people can now elect to pay into EI and the qualify to receive it when necessary (although I’ve never attempted to do so. Has anyone written about how artists can use EI?). Artists can access EI if they pay into it from their day job but then lose that job (either because they were fired/laid off, or because they left that job for another job but then lost that job).

It does suck to pay CPP twice (because just like all other self-employed people we pay the employer share), but those costs are also deducted from our taxable amounts, and they help ensure we can access CPP later in life.

Artists can still access provincial welfare, and — assuming it still exists then — Old Age Security when we turn 67.

And then there’s the whole gamut of other services the government provides that we enjoy, beyond grants — police, fire department, schools, roads, transit, defence, embassies, parks, community centres, etc. So we’re not completely shut out of the government services that we’re being taxed for.

Journalism used to be a profession you could make a living at – we”ll see how these paywalls do – but the odds of making a living at it have fallen to artist-like standards. It’s all theoretical now because the bill is dead, but it would have been a major issue in how this legislation was crafted.