Civil Servants Have it Good.

Last week CTV ran a lead story on their National Newscast about how members of the civil service retire sooner, and with better pensions that the rest of us.

56% of early retirees are the unionized beneficiaries of the heavily burdened Canadian taxpayer- public sector workers. They retire on average at age 59, compared to 33% of early retirees being from the private sector, retiring on average at age 62. The smallest segment of Early retirees is from my sector, the self employed, trailing in at 11%.

The basis of any nation's economy is the act of adding value to a commodity, or providing a service that people are willing to pay for. Any nation that maximizes it's citizen's ability to create wealth prospers. Nations that burden their economies with high taxes and a large tax-payer supported bureaucracy do not do as well.


It's a sign that our public sector is entirely too well paid, when our civil servants make up over half of all early-retirees. Hell, until they retire, they don't even pay income taxes!

I'm serious.

A civil servant receives only his take-home pay. The government, which is paying them, appears to deduct payroll taxes. But since the Wage-payor is also the IncomeTax-recipient, it's a transaction that never really takes place. The net result is that much of the public sector, especially at the federal level, doesn't pay income taxes like the rest of us.

Not until they retire and receive their pensions, do they actually pay any income tax.