Tax Facts 7: The Canadian Consumer Tax Index and You

Aluin Gilchrist is a Vancouver-based Canadian government civil
litigation lawyer.

This book, the seventh in a series, is a report on the tax burden as of
1990. It shows how to calculate tax details for anyone, rich or poor.

Before we complain that we are taxed excessively, or that the burden of
taxation is distributed unfairly, Tax Facts 7 allows us to consider who
pays what. For example, if we group Canadians according to their pretax
income, the 10 percent with the lowest income pay more than twice the
tax if they live in British Columbia that they would pay in Manitoba or
Newfoundland. (No comment as to whether that difference is attributable
to policies designed to dissuade migration away from the harsher kinds
of Canadian winter.) Also, the average Ontario family pays $836 in
automotive, fuel, and motor-vehicle taxes, 13 percent more than in
British Columbia, and the average Ontario family’s total pretax income
is $88,724, 23 percent higher than in British Columbia. (Again, no
comment as to whether that difference is attributable to the number of
people willing to work in the rain and accept lower pay, just to get
away from Ontario.)