Top 20% of Canadian earners pay more than half of all taxes, says study warning against increasing rates

Meanwhile, the bottom 20 per cent of income-earning families are estimated to pay 0.7 per cent of all federal and provincial income taxes

High-income families in Canada are paying a disproportionately large share of taxes, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute . The report, which uses data from Statistics Canada’s Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD/M), shows that the top 20 per cent of income-earning families pay nearly two-thirds (65.3 per cent) of the country’s personal income taxes and more than half (58.3 per cent) of total taxes. This is more than their share of total family income in Canada, which is 49.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the bottom 20 per cent of income-earning families are estimated to pay 0.7 per cent of all federal and provincial personal income taxes and 1.7 per cent of total taxes in Canada, while earning 4.3 per cent of the total family income. In other words, the share of total income received by this group is over six times larger than their share of income taxes paid, the report says. The Fraser Institute defines the top 20 per cent of income-earning families as those with an income of above $270,472, while the bottom 20 per cent are those that have an income of less than $63,068.

The report’s