Response to Emmy Marshall-Hill

This post is in response to Emmy Marshall-Hill’s question regarding my claims of a simpler tax system (original video question at the bottom).

Hi Emmy,

Thank you for your question. To clarify my claims: the current system has 5 different brackets, at irregular and arbitrary intervals. There are exemptions and deductibles and credits. I’d like to direct you to the Government of Canada website on the federal tax rates. You’ll see a complex tax chart, which has you use different columns depending on your income and you need to carry over numbers. A certain amount of tax is collected from paycheques, based on government estimates of your income, but obviously those are never fully accurate, so people have to file stressful 4-page long returns during ‘tax season’. The negative income tax captures into a neat system all the deductibles and credits, and collects 24% directly from paycheques. That’s what I mean by my plan being simple. With one easy calculation, we can have a tax system that is fair and progressive, and better able to address the needs of low income earners.

Hope that answers your question,

Tani

Original question: