Contrary to rhetoric from Ottawa, the vast majority of
middle-class
Canadian
families pay higher federal
personal income taxes due to
tax changes
made by the federal government, finds a new study released today
by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public
policy think-tank.
“The
federal government
has repeatedly asserted
that it lowered
personal income taxes
for the middle class when
in fact it increased
the personal income tax burden on most
middle-class families,”
said Jake
Fuss, senior economist at
the Fraser Institute and co-author of Measuring
the Impact of Federal Personal Income Tax Changes on Middle Income
Canadian Families since 2015.
In 2015, the government
reduced the second-lowest
personal income tax rate (from 22 per cent
to 20.5 per
cent)—but also scrapped income-splitting
for couples with young children and eliminated a series of tax credits,
which more than offset the savings from the
tax rate
reduction.
As a result, the study
finds that 86
per cent of middle-class families
experienced an increase
in their federal personal income tax burden—$800
annually (on
average).
The study compared
federal personal income taxes for families with children in 2015 versus
2019 using a tax and transfer model by Statistics
Canada,
which includes information for more than 1 million Canadians in
over 300,000 households with approximately 600 variables included for
each individual.
“By promoting one income tax change and downplaying others, Ottawa paints an incomplete picture of the overall impact of their tax changes, which have imposed a higher personal income tax bill on the vast majority of middle-class families,” said Fuss
Find out how much more your family might be paying with our tax increase calculator by clicking here
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