Do the Rich Pay a Lot of Taxes?

[BitWhys]

...
Third, the underlying premise of the CCA piece is not incorrect. The distribution of taxes should be measured against the distribution of income...

for all discussions and in all cases. please. who died and made you Pope?

and if you simply don't believe it too bad. that's says more about the reader than the author.

 

[Toro]

for all discussions and in all cases. please. who died and made you Pope?

and if you simply don't believe it too bad. that's says more about the reader than the author.

Take that crowbar out of your ass. It will feel better when you sit down.

 

[Toro]

In the spirit of this thread, I sat down and calculated the actual income tax rates (on taxable income) for all Canadian citizens living in all provinces, excluding Quebec. For anybody who is interested, I can give a maple spreadsheet that has all the details or I can calculate individual tax rates given a taxable income and a province of Canada.

Total tax rate for a person living in Ontario having $100,000 of taxable income (using 2007 rates: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/individuals/faq/taxrates-e.html)
Total Tax Rate = .29242404
I include that many decimal places so that you can count your pennies. For people who like percentages, that's 29.242404%

Now, my father lives in Alberta, and I think he makes about $70,000 a year if he gets a lot of overtime. That means his tax rate is 28.547757%, interestingly enough, because Alberta has a flat tax rate on all income at 10% your low income earnings are taxed at a higher rate than in other provinces, this means that, living in Alberta and making $100,000 a year, your tax rate will be 30.60915% exactly. From which we see, only the richest Albertans get taxed less than their equal earning counterparts in Ontario.

I am not a big fan of income to begin with, but I can show that if you take the high income tax rate formula (the tax rate as a function of income for the highest earners) and applied it to everybody (excepting the low income earners), that people who earn between $40,000 and $120,000 a year are currently being overtaxed by as much as 3.5%. And that if we treated the low income earners as we treated the high income earners, we would actually be giving them money, which is why I said "excepting the low income earners".

Just food for thought.

Thanks for doing this. I did mine when I first moved down here several years ago, so perhaps everything has changed.

It would be interesting to know what taxes are when you include property taxes, sales taxes, etc.

 

[BitWhys]

Take that crowbar out of your ass. It will feel better when you sit down.

you should know

 

[jimmoyer]

The bottom 50 percent of society in both
Canada and United States pay less than 5 percent
of all income tax collected by the national government.

In fact the bottom 50 percent of Canadian society
pays one percent more than the bottom 50 percent
of American society.

Interesting.


CANADA
Income group % of federal personalincome taxes paid
.........................................1990..... .....2002
50% with lowest incomes..............6.7%.........4.4%
40% with intermediate incomes.....47.3%........43.0%
10% with highest incomes............46.0%........52.6%


AMERICA
For Tax Year 2003

Percent Ranked by Adusted Gross Income -------column 1
AGI Threshold on Percentiles ---------------------column 2
Percent of all Federal Income Tax recieved------column 3

Top 1% ..........$295,495...............34.27
Top 5%...........$130,080...............54.36
Top 10%..........$94,891................65.84
Top 25%..........$57,343................83.88
Top 50%..........$29,019................96.54

Bottom 50%...... $29,019............... 3.46



The poor pay more in Canada.
But maybe they get back more in services ?

Also another point posed by Tracy some time ago:
I don't see why paying less taxes means people will be less responsible politically Jim. They are poorer and those people already have less political influence, but they still get to vote.

 

[L Gilbert]

In the spirit of this thread, I sat down and calculated the actual income tax rates (on taxable income) for all Canadian citizens living in all provinces, excluding Quebec. For anybody who is interested, I can give a maple spreadsheet that has all the details or I can calculate individual tax rates given a taxable income and a province of Canada.
...........
Just food for thought.

That's interesting. Thanks, Nif.

 

[gopher]

Taxes include payments you make every time you buy gasoline. The wealthy get big deductions on their corporate accounts for those payments but you don't. That's a tax you pay while they get a freebie.

 

[jimmoyer]

Taxes include payments you make every time you buy gasoline. The wealthy get big deductions on their corporate accounts for those payments but you don't. That's a tax you pay while they get a freebie.
-------------------------------------------gopher---------------------------------------------------

That still doesn't change the fact that the bottom 50 percent of the population barely
pays more than 5 percent of all tax revenue collected.

It also simultaneously supports your suspicion that the rich are indeed very very very rich.

 

[MikeyDB]

Mankind has been fighting the disparity between the wealthy and the poor since Grog and Nog crawled out of their caves. Our modern lexicon of "the rich get richer while the poor get children" is just the status quo of civilization for ever...

I don't have any difficulty with the wealthy accruing wealth through effort and honesty, the difficulty I have is in the wealth accruing wealth at the expense of others...a needless demonizing of particular segments of society...and the help of governments locked into maintaining the status quo...

While Paul Martin stood up in the House of Commons and berated Canadian corporations for not paying their fair share of taxes...Paul re-flagged CSL ships...fired the Canadian crews and hired Phillipino and Asian crews that could be paid less.... and avoided paying Canadian taxes. For a political system to favor the wealthy ahead of the well-being of the whole society....is where there's a fundamental flaw in the system. While Canadian forces are sent overseas...poorly equipped, Jean Chretien decided Canadian politicians needed executive luxury jets to flit about the world...

So long as the wealth of nations is spend preserving the percieved and real imbalances in the opportunities to education and accumulation of wealth...poverty and the divisiveness of wealth vs. poverty will remain...

 

[Niflmir]

The bottom 50 percent of society in both
Canada and United States pay less than 5 percent
of all income tax collected by the national government.

In fact the bottom 50 percent of Canadian society
pays one percent more than the bottom 50 percent
of American society.

Interesting.


CANADA
Income group % of federal personalincome taxes paid
.........................................1990..... .....2002
50% with lowest incomes..............6.7%.........4.4%
40% with intermediate incomes.....47.3%........43.0%
10% with highest incomes............46.0%........52.6%


AMERICA
For Tax Year 2003

Percent Ranked by Adusted Gross Income -------column 1
AGI Threshold on Percentiles ---------------------column 2
Percent of all Federal Income Tax recieved------column 3

Top 1% ..........$295,495...............34.27
Top 5%...........$130,080...............54.36
Top 10%..........$94,891................65.84
Top 25%..........$57,343................83.88
Top 50%..........$29,019................96.54

Bottom 50%...... $29,019............... 3.46



The poor pay more in Canada.
But maybe they get back more in services ?

Also another point posed by Tracy some time ago:
I don't see why paying less taxes means people will be less responsible politically Jim. They are poorer and those people already have less political influence, but they still get to vote.

Well, you have to keep in mind that they aren't poor, they are the "low income" group, which generally includes the poor. And the percentage of tax revenue paid is a terrible figure by itself to make comparisons based on. What you need to compare is their fraction of the tax revenue to their share of the total income. If the lower income group pay less of their income share in taxes than higher income groups, you can call it progressive. I am not sure how progressive things are in Canada.

 

[MikeyDB]

Progress...........Canada......

Now there's an oxymoron.

 

[L Gilbert]

Mankind has been fighting the disparity between the wealthy and the poor since Grog and Nog crawled out of their caves. Our modern lexicon of "the rich get richer while the poor get children" is just the status quo of civilization for ever...

I don't have any difficulty with the wealthy accruing wealth through effort and honesty, the difficulty I have is in the wealth accruing wealth at the expense of others...a needless demonizing of particular segments of society...and the help of governments locked into maintaining the status quo...

While Paul Martin stood up in the House of Commons and berated Canadian corporations for not paying their fair share of taxes...Paul re-flagged CSL ships...fired the Canadian crews and hired Phillipino and Asian crews that could be paid less.... and avoided paying Canadian taxes. For a political system to favor the wealthy ahead of the well-being of the whole society....is where there's a fundamental flaw in the system. While Canadian forces are sent overseas...poorly equipped, Jean Chretien decided Canadian politicians needed executive luxury jets to flit about the world...

So long as the wealth of nations is spend preserving the percieved and real imbalances in the opportunities to education and accumulation of wealth...poverty and the divisiveness of wealth vs. poverty will remain...

Exactly. Now I don't have to say all that.

 

[L Gilbert]

Well, you have to keep in mind that they aren't poor, they are the "low income" group, which generally includes the poor. And the percentage of tax revenue paid is a terrible figure by itself to make comparisons based on. What you need to compare is their fraction of the tax revenue to their share of the total income. If the lower income group pay less of their income share in taxes than higher income groups, you can call it progressive. I am not sure how progressive things are in Canada.

I would suspect that it isn't terribly progressive. The fact that the income gap is widening seems to indicate that it's negative. Or would I be wrong with that thought?

 

[L Gilbert]

Progress...........Canada......

Now there's an oxymoron.

lol.
I'll ditto that.

 

[Niflmir]

I would suspect that it isn't terribly progressive. The fact that the income gap is widening seems to indicate that it's negative. Or would I be wrong with that thought?

Well, the biggest problem with all of these figures is that they are based on taxable income. The more money you have, the larger the untaxable portion of your income becomes, until eventually you live in your company time share in Cancun, fly your company jet around and everything is a business meal.

That's sort of the extreme... but simply making RRSP contributions is a luxury that the higher income groups have that the lower income groups do not. Since your RRSP is deductible, the money you spend is not really taxable.

 

[L Gilbert]

Makes sense.

 

[gopher]

``` That still doesn't change the fact that the bottom 50 percent of the population barely
pays more than 5 percent of all tax revenue collected.```

If that's what you want to believe, so be it. I choose to believe the truth as shown in my previous links.

Case closed.

 

[darkbeaver]

The rich pay taxes, that's close to oxymoronic isn't it? Part of the perks for the rich is that you can afford the tax expertize to make it appear that you pay tax when in fact you acctually levy and collect tax.:lol:

 

[jimmoyer]

And the percentage of tax revenue paid is a terrible figure by itself to make comparisons based on. What you need to compare is their fraction of the tax revenue to their share of the total income. If the lower income group pay less of their income share in taxes than higher income groups, you can call it progressive. I am not sure how progressive things are in Canada.
------------------------------------------Niflmir--------------------------------------------
I would not say you are wrong Niflmir, but I will say your point of view is so dominant in the liberal press that rarely do they print the stats I posted and therefore a lot of the lesser informed really don't know that the bottom 50 percent of society does pay only 4-5 percent of all collected revenue.

Likewise you might miss the point that favors your bias. Those stats don't only support the rich argument that they pay the lionshare, but they also support the liberal argument that they are so rich that they are paying the lionshare without a lot of sweat.

CANADA
Income group % of federal personalincome taxes paid
.........................................1990..... .....2002
50% with lowest incomes..............6.7%.........4.4%
40% with intermediate incomes.....47.3%........43.0%
10% with highest incomes............46.0%........52.6%


AMERICA
For Tax Year 2003

Percent Ranked by Adusted Gross Income -------column 1
AGI Threshold on Percentiles ---------------------column 2
Percent of all Federal Income Tax recieved------column 3

Top 1% ..........$295,495...............34.27
Top 5%...........$130,080...............54.36
Top 10%..........$94,891................65.84
Top 25%..........$57,343................83.88
Top 50%..........$29,019................96.54

Bottom 50%...... $29,019............... 3.46

The reality there for the liberal side is how rich the rich really are.
The reality for the conservative side can be misleading as they pat their rich backsides on paying the lionshare.

 

[BitWhys]

The chart you provided reports only income tax so therefore fails to include property and consumption taxes which means the numbers you reference are not conclusive.