Tax advantages on buying your own home in Canada Research Paper

Tax advantages on buying your own home in Canada - Research Paper Example Home ownership is a critical subject that needs to be handled with care; in the recent past, most Canadians have never had the coveted opportunity of owning a home. Nevertheless, with the tax advantages in place more Canadians are having the opportunity to own a home. Every time one requires to purchase a house such a person must consider of the tax benefits involved in such an investment. The government has made frantic efforts to ensure that citizens are empowered to own homes. Therefore, households which purchase houses usually make a great deal in savings. However, several restrictions and procedures control the tax benefits. It is therefore, critical that deliberate efforts are taken by potential homeowners to consult with several tax professionals such as accountants to help them to fully understand the benefits of owning a home. The subsequent paragraph illuminates the tax benefits of owning a home in Canada as well as Professor Tristani’s view that owning a home may no t be advantageous after all. Tax Benefits of Owning a home Deductions on mortgage interest are one tax benefit that comes with owning a house in Canada. The Government in a bid to ensure that more households own homes has partnered with several commercial financial institutions such as banks with a view of effecting deductions on mortgage interest when the applicants meet some standards set (Canada, 2006). In fact, it is very possible for individuals to be offered tax deductions for the interest payable on mortgage taken for purchase, of home or for improvement of home. It is worth noting that although there are several deductions on mortgage interest the procedures involved are quite elaborate. Therefore, expert guidance is required so that a potential homebuyer does not miss the benefits that come with it (Andersen, 2009). Access Access to mortgage is one critical achievement that the government can take credit for removal of the many restrictions that had barred several people fr om owning homes. For example, currently Canadians are not required to offer collateral on mortgagees, and this means that even people with average income who do not have assets have the opportunity of owning a home. Moreover, the many bureaucracies that characterized application to obtain a mortgage have been reduced considerably. What is more, even the rate of interest on mortgage is at all-time low at 4%. The other tax benefit of owning a home can be realized from the deductions that are pegged to home improvement and repairs. Improvement and repairs to home are crucial in the sense that they result in increasing the value of the house, make it to be used for a different purpose, or increasing its value. However, homeowner must be alive to the fact that ordinary cost incurred with maintaining the home do not qualify for deductions (Higgins, 2004). It is currently possible for people to secure loans for repairs and improvement of the value of the house. This possibility has gone a long way to ensuring that majority of Canadians lengthen the useful period of their homes. When the individual applying for the mortgage follows the right procedures and meets the requirement for reduction, the individual will be offered a deduction on interest for a mortgage taken to facilitate repairs and maintenance of the house. Deducting of points and closing of costs is yet another tax benefit that is inherent in home ownership. Every other time when one secures a mortgage, such a mortgage is charged costs referred to as lender points. The faster the one pays up the mortgage and accruing interest the more points he is awarded. This means that depending on the points one has he can qualify for deduc

Plato's Idea that Justice Is a Condition of the Soul Essay

Plato's Idea that Justice Is a Condition of the Soul - Essay Example Even though this monarch has supreme power, he does not agree to rule because of love for power (Irwin 1999, p.67). It is because of knowledge of the Good that the monarch will focus on doing what he or she does best for the benefit of the whole community. An ideally just state has classes of citizens in which every class has its suitable virtue. Ideal guardians have courage, ideal rulers rule wisely, and ideal producers are calm. Each class of citizens performs the type of work which best suits them and never interferes with proper business for citizens in other classes. To Plato, in an individual’s soul, justice entails being governed by that component of the soul that has the best capacity to rule other parts of the soul that is reason. It is for the reason that, only reason can attain knowledge due its love for truth. However, it can be oppressed and overwhelmed by powerful wishes which have enslaved the spirited part. The other parts of the soul include desire or appetite and spirit, which do not function with the aim of obtaining knowledge, rather aims at its own good. The spirit controls, initiates actions, and persists one’s actions. It also makes decisions and choices, while appetite focuses on attaining necessities of the body. Spirit however, cannot decide wisely unless it is notified by the coherent part of the soul on the best thing to do in a situation. Most importantly, when an individual’s soul is governed by their reason and they are wise, they will never do wrong, since the spirited element of their soul will automatically side with the rational part. The basic idea of the soul in Plato’s work provides that it is a component that can initiate motion, needless to be moved by anything else (Nehamas 2000, p. 98). A search for the meaning of justice would ultimately lead to two meanings: Justice is doing personal job precisely, and Justice is harmony. The overall aim of Plato’s idea that justice is a condition of the soul is to give a defense of justice through showing that an in individual is better off when he is just than when he is unjust. This brings out well-known criticisms on the above defense. First, it commits a fallacy of irrelevance, providing citizens with the incorrect reason for being just. Despite a barrier that Plato puts in his own way, he possesses answers to all these criticisms. The answers commit him to a view much similar to the intuitionism forms that were held earlier in past centuries. Consequently, it makes it uncertain that Plato should be taken to embrace an agent-centered rather than an act centered justice theory. Moreover, it leaves him to face criticisms parallel to those raised against the latter forms of intuitionism (Rosen 2005, p. 186). Plato’s description of justice as every part carrying out its part of balance is satisfying, but most significantly, they must be all balanced. Such balance is not illustrated well in Platonic ideas. We must apprec iate the body, the mind, and the spirit equally, since none is more important than the other so that we can achieve happiness and justice, which will finally create good life. His believe that just life is natural and should come from man’s fulfillment of his natural function imply some design to the world, which may not be so practical. There is no perfect objective reality, neither is there natural purpose or end to