Halloween - Life's Perfect Teaching Moment

Halloween is almost upon us and my thoughts naturally turn to... taxes. Let me explain.

Growing up in small-town Ipswich, Massachusetts, we kids all went out door-to-door to collect whatever goodies were being handed out, mostly candy. There were, ultimately, six of us - I was the oldest and I had five siblings, Ann, Martha, Matt, Tom and Peggy. Added together, we're talking about enough sugar flowing into the Waite household to create a year-long buzz.

But there was a catch. Our Dad, Dr. Robert Waite, was the local dentist. And, somewhat ironically, he also had a real sweet tooth. It obviously would have been unseemly for him to don a costume and scoop up candy himself...but he had all of us doing the work for him. When we returned home with our bags bulging...he confiscated approximately 30% of the candy.

And it wasn't random - he took what he really craved, including Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Was this carried out in the name of fighting tooth decay... or childhood obesity? Nope. He told us it was a tax - and that he was getting us ready for the reality that government was going to take 30% of whatever we earned...forever. (If we had lived in Canada, he would have been justified taking 40%.)

Fast-forward a few decades...and I'm living in Toronto with Karen Shigeishi-Waite...and we have two kids...who go trick or treating. Guess what? Every time they returned with bulging bags of goodies...I taxed them 30%. And I particularly went after those Reese's cups. Every time I bit into one...I thought of my Dad. Who says teaching personal finance has to be boring and unemotional?

(Robert Waite is Managing Partner at Waite + Company and a Professor at Seneca College. Much like his labrador retriever, Tashi, who will do anything for a pat of butter, he has no ethical constraints when it comes to peanut butter cups.)