Canada’s top-end personal tax rates need to come down
Canada needs to take a hard look at lowering personal tax rates and ensure people keep at least half of all gains. Before 2015, Alberta had, by far, the lowest federal-provincial combined top marginal tax rate in Canada at 39 per cent. This comparative advantage contributed greatly to large amounts of investment and people going into Alberta.
That year, however, the federal Liberal Party formed the new government, and in Alberta, the NDP surprisingly came to power provincially. The new federal government promptly announced it was raising the rates on so-called high-income earners by “asking them to pay just a little bit more” (an offensive speaking point that was overused for the next four-plus years, especially when one understands how much high-income earners already pay when compared to the whole of Canada). The new “ask” would commence in 2016 by introducing a new high federal bracket that increased the top-end rate by four per cent.
Read the full article here.