joe posts

It’s that time of year again. The upside of being poor is that you get a nice refund from the government. Hopefully. It’s the rich that have to pay! Or is it?

In 1990, Canada’s overall tax system was more progressive, meaning families with higher income contributed relatively more through higher tax rates, to help pay for the things that benefit all of us: health care, education, roads, buses and subways.

Truth be told, things flattened out from the middle of the income distribution to the top – families at the top paid about the same share of their income in taxes as families in the middle.

But by 2005, the system has become far less progressive at the bottom of the distribution, and at the very top it has become regressive. Staggeringly, the top 1% pay total tax rates as much as six percentage points of income lower than families in the middle.

As a number of studies have found, the richest 1% of Canadians are getting the lion’s share of market income gains from a decade of remarkable economic growth. Yet, astonishingly, the richest 1% of families also now pay a lower tax rate than the poorest 10%. – Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Something to think about next time the boss bitches about taxes, and drives home in his Porsche.