explain to me why ohep cost 300 bucks?

[welsh]

grizzlygreig, you seriously overestimate what can be written off.

Right off your car?...

Not unless the car is owned by the business. And if the car is owned by the business -- which is teaching firearms and hunting courses -- then its primary use must be to transport you to and from said courses. Nobody is teaching that many hunter safety courses.

No, the instructor can't write off his car, unless he wants to get nailed for tax evasion.

Gas?...

You could claim mileage for transportation to and from the place where you ran the course. Again, all this does is to reduce your tax owing. It doesn't pay for your gas.

Office space in your own home?...

Only if the office space in your home is used exclusively (or at least primarily) for the purpose of running your business. No one is in his home office, doing course administration work, five days a week.

No, the instructor can't claim business use of his home.

Computer?...

Not unless the primary use of the computer is for the courses. The instructor could claim a laptop used with a projector in the courses, but he could not claim his home computer because he uses it for administration.

Computers are a capital cost, by the way, not a writeoff.

Meals?...

You're better off brown-bagging it. If you spend $15 on lunch then with a 30% tax rate your writeoff is $4.50. You still spent ten bucks which you'll never see again.

There is no free lunch. The extent to which taxpayers are paying for the costs of putting on these courses, through tax deductions, is only a fraction of the actual costs. That's how tax deductions work.

Here's the bottom line: we have an MNR that can't find the money to carry out its basic mandate, and you want the government to pay for your one-time user fees through tax dollars.

[mark270wsm]

21300 people took the program last year. 21300 x300 =6390000 that's a ton of cash that can go back into the mnr even if they charged half that price its still around 3000000 that could go along way into the coffers of hunting I know I know the government would just absorbed the money but its got to be better than what is happening now . And who plays by the rules when it comes to revenue Canada. Time for this progam to evolve into the 20th century . its just like hockey a lot of kids sit on the sidelines cause its so expensive, because it is . there is no reason that I can see for the fee to be so high

[bowj]

grizzlygreig, you seriously overestimate what can be written off.



Not unless the car is owned by the business. And if the car is owned by the business -- which is teaching firearms and hunting courses -- then its primary use must be to transport you to and from said courses. Nobody is teaching that many hunter safety courses.

No, the instructor can't write off his car, unless he wants to get nailed for tax evasion.



You could claim mileage for transportation to and from the place where you ran the course. Again, all this does is to reduce your tax owing. It doesn't pay for your gas.



Only if the office space in your home is used exclusively (or at least primarily) for the purpose of running your business. No one is in his home office, doing course administration work, five days a week.

No, the instructor can't claim business use of his home.



Not unless the primary use of the computer is for the courses. The instructor could claim a laptop used with a projector in the courses, but he could not claim his home computer because he uses it for administration.

Computers are a capital cost, by the way, not a writeoff.



You're better off brown-bagging it. If you spend $15 on lunch then with a 30% tax rate your writeoff is $4.50. You still spent ten bucks which you'll never see again.

There is no free lunch. The extent to which taxpayers are paying for the costs of putting on these courses, through tax deductions, is only a fraction of the actual costs. That's how tax deductions work.

Here's the bottom line: we have an MNR that can't find the money to carry out its basic mandate, and you want the government to pay for your one-time user fees through tax dollars.

[Dythbringer]

21300 people took the program last year. 21300 x300 =6390000 that's a ton of cash that can go back into the mnr even if they charged half that price its still around 3000000 that could go along way into the coffers of hunting I know I know the government would just absorbed the money but its got to be better than what is happening now . And who plays by the rules when it comes to revenue Canada. Time for this progam to evolve into the 20th century . its just like hockey a lot of kids sit on the sidelines cause its so expensive, because it is . there is no reason that I can see for the fee to be so high

mark270wsm,

The OHEP doesn't cost $300. I don't know where you are getting this information from.

Dyth

[welsh]

21300 people took the program last year. 21300 x300 =6390000 that's a ton of cash that can go back into the mnr even if they charged half that price its still around 3000000 that could go along way into the coffers of hunting I know I know the government would just absorbed the money but its got to be better than what is happening now...

Except that, as someone already pointed out above and as you have chosen to ignore, the cost of the hunter ed program is not $300. That would be a typical cost for a combined OHEP and CFSC program. Hunter ed, the portion that the province is responsible for, is less. A quick search turns up $135 in Ottawa, $160 in Caledonia, $185 in Barrie, $140 in Toronto, $120 in Pembroke, and $170 in London.

So the answer to your original question is that OHEP doesn't cost $300 and you should pull your head out.

As for your arithmetic above, the total revenue would of course be half of what you suggest, because the course costs half of what you say it does.

Then we run into your silly assumption that the tuition fees would go "back into the MNR," as if the MNR employees delivering the courses aren't paid and as if all the expenses of running the course somehow disappear when the government delivers it.

This leads us to the implicit suggestion that it would be okay for the government to hose us on the cost of the course because the money would be going back into "the coffers of hunting." Most people would agree that government-delivered services should be delivered at no more than the cost to provide them.

We have an MNR that can't afford to deliver the services it is already mandated to deliver, in a province that is facing a serious debt problem and a revenue shortfall. And you are suggesting that the MNR should deliver OHEP training to reduce the cost, rather than having hunters bear the cost of their own activities. You seem to think that governments deliver services for free and that the fees they charge go back into government coffers.

Who is it you were accusing of voting Liberal?

And who plays by the rules when it comes to revenue Canada.

This has nothing to do with it. I'm amazed at how we can move from "they write it off" to "they can write off other stuff too" and finally to "everyone cheats so they must be writing it off."

The point is that you can't write off an expense without spending the money (the Senate notwithstanding). This idea that OHEP instructors are cheating you and rolling in cash comes from sheer ignorance. The money spent on expenses is gone and it reduces the instructor's net income.

You asked why the course costs $300, which it does not. You received answers from knowledgeable people about the costs of delivering these courses. You chose to ignore those answers. It seems your question was disingenuous.

Meanwhile, I don't see any OHEP instructors lighting cigars with $100 bills.

there is no reason that I can see for the fee to be so high

This tells us less about the cost of running courses, to be quite frank, than it does about your own limitations.

[grizzlygreig]

Ok... On line courses in other provinces are no good... Nobody cheats on taxes... Gotta have money to be in hunting... I have heard enough crap on this subject... And everyone else that has read it can make up there own minds !...

[werner.reiche]

Re: Welsh's comments about write-offs - I run my own business and what he has posted related to write-offs is the way it works...except that the lunch write-off is 50%, I think, not 30%. As far as people cheating when dealing with Revenue Canada, I don't, and most business people I know don't and if you work with an accountant, they won't let you. Getting on Revenue Canada's bad side is not something you want to do. You can arrange your tax situation to be as much in your favour as you can, but there are two things you cannot do (a) not report income and (b) report expenses which you did not incur directly related to your business.

[Exo200]

$300 is going to be the cheapest part of the hunting / shooting experience ! Don't tell my wife i'm into the 10's of thousands now. LOL

[greatwhite]

Unless your very wealthy not worth trying to cheat. My brother cheated and got nailed he had to pay back over 10K. So I don't cheat on my taxes. You can always challenge the course then you just pay for that I think approx 60.00

[Dythbringer]

$300 is going to be the cheapest part of the hunting / shooting experience ! Don't tell my wife i'm into the 10's of thousands now. LOL

Exo200,

I know that and you know that but there are some folks on these boards whom cannot comprehend concepts such as ongoing expenses. They seem to think licences, firearms, gas, ammo, etc don't cost any money. Then when they are repeatedly told they are incorrect and shown evidence and arguments by people who are either vastly more knowledgable or experienced than themselves, instead of admitting they may have been incorrect, they become all grumpy and don't want to play with us anymore.

Dyth