Trudeau’s crazy spending means higher taxes, no matter what he says

The only thing Justin Trudeau seems to know about our tax system is that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share.

He’s never given us his definition of what a fair share is, he’s never provided the opposition, the media or the public with facts to back up his demonstrably false claim.

I’ve argued here that maybe he thinks well off Canadians don’t pay their fair share because he’s so used to the numbered companies and family trusts that he and Bill Morneau use to shelter their money that he thinks everyone does this.

Now we have two reports in two days from two respected organizations on who pays what when it comes to taxes in Canada.

The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation has updated the numbers on which income group pays the most taxes while The Fraser Institute says that after all of Justin Trudeau’s tax changes, the average middle class family is paying more income tax despite the so-called “middle-class tax cut.”

“The middle class could always use a tax break. But it is false to say higher income Canadians do not pay their fair share,” said Mark Milke, author of the CTF report.

“The CRA data shows the opposite: Six figure incomes make up less than one-tenth of all tax filers but pay almost 52% of all federal income tax and 54% of all provincial income tax,” continued Milke.

You can read the whole report here. Now despite what the CTF’s critics might claim, the organization is not calling for lower taxes for the wealthy and higher taxes for anyone else. As I have argued, the problem with the federal government isn’t a revenue problem but a spending problem. In the two years since Trudeau and his Liberals took office, program spending has gone up by more than 30%.

But don’t worry, Trudeau has cut your taxes, or at least that is what he keeps telling everyone.

What Trudeau did was cut the second tax rate from 22% to 20.5%. That new rate is charged on income between $45,916 and $91,831.

Since the average Canadian earns just a little over $48,000 a year, that tax cut isn’t worth much to the average working stiff, no matter how much Trudeau sells it.

But what about those earning a little bit more?

The Fraser Institute looked at the impact of not only the tax cut Trudeau brought in but also the removal of items such as income splitting, sports and arts tax credits and more. They defined a middle class family as a family income of between $77,089 and $107,624 based on that being the middle quintile for income tax filers.

What Fraser’s lead researcher on the report Charles Lammam found out is that the average family is paying $840 more in federal income taxes thanks to all of Trudeau’s changes.

“By promoting one of its many income tax changes and downplaying the others, Ottawa is leaving Canadians with an incomplete picture of the overall impact of their tax changes, which is burdening the vast majority of middle-class families with a higher income tax bill,” Lammam said.

Now that is just an extra $840 in income taxes and doesn’t include other tax changes brought in by Trudeau’s Liberals. In the New Year CPP premiums will go up, taxes on tobacco and alcohol have gone up and in fact the alcohol tax now has an automatic escalator built into it.

Don’t forget about his promise to impose a carbon tax on any province that doesn’t have one, or doesn’t charge enough.

No one can deny that Trudeau has cut the income tax rate but there is a big difference between paying a lower rate and your total tax take. Trudeau’s out of control spending means he is trying to find money wherever he can and with spending set to grow next year, we can expect him to look for more revenue tools as Liberals like to call them.

What that means is that the people at the top of the income ladder, already paying the lion’s share of taxes, will be paying even more.

Welcome to Justin Trudeau’s view of fairness.