Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for September 10th, 2008

One of my favorite topics to discuss with anyone political is: why is it that the Canadian Tax system seems to be skewed against the single income family?

Most of the time the response I get back is a lot of “baffle gab” about supporting families through social programs, etc., however that is not what I am saying.

If you gave a couple (be they married or not) an ability to pool their income and income split (as they currently can with pension income after age 55), you might be surprised at what comes of this. If I was able to income split with my spouse (when I was employed at least) the amount of tax I would have paid would have been staggeringly less than I did as a single income earner, even with the paltry tax credit for the “Married tax credit”.

I have done numerous articles on this one (and have caused some interesting discussions in the comments as well), so I won’t rehash the numbers, but I think if the government gave families or couples the capability to income split or income balance (if that made sense) and had the concept of the Household Income, I tihnk they might see:

• More single income families, since it would make more sense for a spouse to stay home instead of taking a lower paying job.
• Higher employment numbers, since there would be many people who would stop looking for work, as they are more of a family asset as a tax shelter.

Haven’t had any politicos appear on my doorstep yet, but given I am home all day long, I feel sorry for the first one to show up on my doorstep.