www.policyalternatives.ca

Wealthy Canadians not overtaxed, report says

The rich are not overtaxed, argues a new report, which says that the main
reason they are paying a greater proportion of the total tax bill than in
the past is that they are getting a bigger share of the income pie while
the rest are getting less, reported the National Post Oct. 14. "Despite
recent reports to the contrary, Canada's high-income earners do not pay a
disproportionately large share of personal income tax," said the report by
economist Neil Brooks, a professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School.

The report, released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, takes
aim at what it charges were widespread but misleading reports on a
Statistics Canada study earlier this year that found that the top 10 per
cent of income earners paid 52.6 per cent of the total tax bill in 2002, up
from 46 per cent in 1990. The main reason for the increase was that the
share of earned income going to those top earners increased by 12.6 per
cent over that same period to 35.7 per cent, while the share going to those
on the bottom half of the income ladder declined 11 per cent to 16.9 per
cent. "In fact, the increasing inequality in the distribution of income in
Canada is the real story of the Statistics Canada analysis," Brooks said.
"Canada is becoming a much more unequal society."