I’m being torn sometimes when I hear holiday music over the radio, which rarely happens since I ask my chauffeur to tune in to CNBC on Sirius XM when I need to deeply relax after a day at work. Hearing Jim Kramer ranting about some stock soothes my nerves. Some people enjoy Japanese meditation music, me I like hearing a Wall Street junkie go overboard about some apparently hot stock.
But I digress, holiday music brings into focus a fictional character who goes by the name of Santa Claus. Mr. Claus has a strange business model that even as a kid I had a hard time grasping. This guys runs an operation that is - by all accounts - fairly large since he serves customers all over the world. Yet, Santa does not report any revenues whatsoever, does not file a 10-K and does not have any shareholders that I know of. Distributing toys for free all over the world must be terribly expensive, I cannot wrap my mind on all the operating charges that Santa must have.
When I have 5 I recall saying to my mom that I suspected Santa was a socialist who was fond of the work of Karl Marx. I had estimated his balance sheet for the upcoming Christmas using my Crayola set and it was bleeding red ink.
Today I suspect that Santa runs a non-profit organization funded entirely by the Quebec government who is so keen to throw money everywhere without any hope of ROI. I called Carlos Leitao the other day and he did not deny or acknowledge my hypothesis, he was rather uncomfortable discussing the topic I could tell. The truth is out there, I told him, one day or another this guy will make the headlines.
“Should Santa Claus generate any revenue in Quebec he will be taxed as a corporation” said Carlos in his well-known neutral tone.
“So Santa exists?”
“The existence of a corporation is handled by the Registraires des entreprises, you can look it up on the Internet”. Carlos is so by-the-book it is painful sometimes.
“Am I as a taxpayer paying for Santa’s worldwide operations, Carlos, tell me the truth.”
“It is a complex question, Mr. Roach. I would be more than happy to let you talk with one of my people who handles non-profil organizations.”
This bureaucrat was hard to corner, dealing with Raymond Bachand was a different ball game. So I went straight to his guts, Rocky-style fashion.
“Carlos, does Santa require a permit in Quebec to distribute free toys, what form does he have to fill, is there an annual fee for Santa to pay, does his sleigh requires a licence plate from the SAAQ, does he have a GST/QST number, is there a Quebec-specific tax for jolly old fellows, tell me now”
Carlos was flabbergasted to say the least, he first assured me that Santa was compliant with Quebec legislation. “This is a delicate situation, and we are not taking it lightly. We increased the Toy Distribution Sales Tax from 5% to 9% this year hoping to generate additional revenues. However Santa told us that Quebec would be excluded from his 2015 world tour, doing business here is now impossible or let’s just say too difficult for the time being. We talked about increasing the tax more slowly instead of a sharp increase but Mr. Claus says his decision was final.”
I took a stern tone. “So Santa will do BC, Alberta, Ontario, the Maritimes but his sleigh will just jump over Quebec for fiscal reasons, is that what are you saying Carlos?”
“This is a business decision on his end. I talked with the prime minister about this but you know how Mr. Couillard is acting these days, if it is not an environment-friendly project he just throws a tantrum. So maybe Christmas will be back in 2016, do not despair. Santa has been made aware of our negotiations with public workers, most of them are on his naughty list anyway.”
“You killed Christmas, you know that Carlos?”
“Let’s just say we are trying to balance the budget the best we can. Now I need to go, I have meeting with my directors to discuss new taxes for 2017. Happy Christmas to you, Michael.”
That’s it, you learned it from me. There will not be a Christmas this year, thanks to the vicious tax legislation of Carlos the Banditos.
