Mark Milke is the author of Tax Me I'm Canadian – A Taxpayer's Guide to Your Money and How Politicians Spend It.
In the political world in which Justin Trudeau resides, it is often tempting to "freelance" on pronouncements and skip any fact-based inspiration.
Example: Just last month, when the Prime Minister offered up his paean to the late Fidel Castro, Mr. Trudeau claimed Cubans "had a deep and lasting affection for 'el Comandante.'"
Actually, that was impossible to know. Cubans were forced to live under Mr. Castro, that or board a raft to Florida. So the Prime Minister's tribute was floating on a fact-free sea.
More recently, Mr. Trudeau attempted to skirt the inconvenient fact of his attendance at lavish Liberal party fundraisers, where attendees sometimes lobby the Prime Minister in direct violation of party fundraising rules.
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To change the channel, the Prime Minister claimed he was speaking truth, of a taxing sort, to power. He claimed he told assembled folk what he always tells the rich: That he will "create economic growth for the middle class by increasing taxes for the 1 per cent of the wealthiest."
Ignore the Prime Minister's deer-in-the-headlights response ("1 per cent of the wealthiest" as opposed to the "1 per cent"?) and where he claims taxing one cohort less and another more is a recipe for economic growth. Skip how all the tax talk ignores the spending side of the budget where Mr. Trudeau and prudence are mortal enemies.
Instead, ponder the Prime Minister's assumption there is more room to tax higher income earners – a few entrepreneurs, managers in the public sector and some physicians (though never as many as assumed in the latter case) and others.
Some tax facts to ponder. Back in 2014, top marginal income tax rates hit 50 per cent in just one province, Nova Scotia. The gentlest combined federal-provincial income tax take for high-income earners was in Alberta, at 39 per cent.
Two years later, after federal and provincial tax increases, the top marginal rate is more than 50 per cent in six provinces. Nova Scotia now taxes what few high-income earners live there at a provincial-federal top rate of 54 per cent. The new arrivals to the 50-per-cent-plus club include Ontario (53.5 per cent), Quebec and New Brunswick (both at 53.3 per cent), Prince Edward Island (51.37 per cent) and Manitoba (50.4 per cent).
The other provinces are not exactly low-tax havens, either. As of 2016, British Columbia's combined top provincial-federal income tax rate is 47.7 per cent. Alberta and Saskatchewan charge the highest-income earners 48 per cent while Newfoundland and Labrador's top marginal rate is 49.8 per cent.
One might argue it is only proper to make high-income Canadians pay their "fair" share. Problem: They already did before Ottawa and the provinces began their renewed higher-tax journeys.
In 2014, 26.1 million people filed income tax returns. Just under 8.6 million paid no income tax. That left the rest of us, 17.5 million tax filers, to pay for the cost of government.
Consider federal taxes, the only area over which the Prime Minister has jurisdiction.
Of the $126-billion in federal income tax paid in 2014, those with taxable incomes of $250,000 or more (not quite the 1 per cent but close enough) represented 1.4 per cent of all tax filers who paid tax. Their share of all taxable income was 11 per cent; they paid 21 per cent of federal income taxes, or $26.2-billion. Relative to income and other tax filers, that was rather "fair" already.
Another fact to consider: Even if the Prime Minister plans to double taxes on high-income earners – an unwise move that would send even more doctors and others south of the border – all the tax-raising on the wealthy won't pay for next year's forecast deficit of $27.8-billion.
That means, to deal with deficits, the rest of us will soon get hit by new and higher taxes. Fact: This was already under way with Mr. Trudeau's plan to tax everyone more via his demand for cross-country carbon taxes; it might also explain the federal government's trial balloon to apply $2.9-billion in taxes to employer-provided health and dental plans.
That's why tax "fairness" chatter from politicians is usually problematic: Once governments choose increased taxes over restrained spending, the rest of us soon become trapped in their higher tax plans. That's another inevitable problem with fact-free musings.