“Two hundred or so piastres,” repeats an electrician from Rouyn-Noranda who, despite being 76, still works full-time, as if trying to absorb the number. “Trudeau interrupts me every month because I work too many hours.”
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Every morning the streets of Rouyn-Noranda are empty when Yvon Bélanger gets into his car to go to work in Val-d'Or because it is still very early.
“I leave our house at 5 a.m. and come back at 6 p.m.,” he says on the phone. “I do this four times a week, 10 hours a day. It's a long time to travel every day, but that doesn't matter, I'll be compensated for it.
This is more or less the routine of Mr. Bélanger, who has been an industrial electrician for 56 years. But as the years pass, he dreads the moment when he has to put away his tools.
“If I stop working, I will be poor and almost have to go to the food bank. That's what keeps me going. But I don't understand why the federal government is deducting $200 from my pension [de sécurité de la vieillesse]“It's like he's punishing me because I work,” he complains.
“If the government wants us to continue working because it lacks workers, it will simply have to pay us our clear wages… I'm not a specialist in this, I'm just a worker, you know…”
Security pension
$784.67. This is the amount that people aged 75 and over can receive each month with the federal security pension.
However, this amount is taxable and subject to rebate tax if net annual income is more than $81,761. Hence the “approximately two hundred piastres” deducted from Mr. Bélanger each month. If his income falls below this limit, he would therefore receive a slightly higher amount.
Tax expert Luc Godbout was asked about this issue last week and suggested “introducing an allowance on the labor income side” and ensuring that a certain part is not taken into account when calculating PSV. He believes this could encourage people to stay in the job market a little longer.
Deterrent effect
It is now clear that the “disheartening” effect of the PSV reduction is real, even if it only affects the minority of people who continue to work full-time and with a good salary even in old age. “I don't mind paying taxes, that's normal, but it's annoying when you lose money because you're working,” says the electrician.
That sentiment is shared by many Journal readers who wrote to us this week in response to the story of the 70-year-old supermarket cashier who will soon quit his full-time job to escape the clutches of taxes.
Several have admitted that they will not return to the labor market because the incentives provided by Quebec and Ottawa do not seem sufficiently beneficial to them.
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