When you get into election campaigns it’s not hard to get confused when candidates start talking about the middle class, who will pay more and who will pay less after they tinker with the tax system, or just how we define rich.
StatsCan has offered some information on the topic that, depending on your point of view, may muddy the waters further or offer some clarity. And one of the things they looked at is people at the top of the income scale.
On this one, Saskatchewan doesn’t show up very well at all.
The federal agency looked top 1% of earners in this country in 2016 and 2017.
Our top earners represented less than two-percent of the national total. Given that we have three-percent of the country’s population, we under-performed dramatically.
The average income of the top 1% in this province was $379,000 in 2016 and $432,000 the following year, about $80,000 a year behind BC’s 1%’ers. And that average income attracts an above-average tax bill with Saskatchewan’s top income tax filers paying $120,000 to $140,000 in each of those years.
