Canada is in the midst of a Federal Election, with politicians flying across the country to earn voters trust while people are dutifully filing their taxes. I personally would like to see more accountability and tax dollars focused on health care, schools and better police training, nationally and locally. Regardless of my personal views, Canadians across the country are footing the bill for politician’s wages and their big plans. But there are some provinces where you get to take home much more of the amount of income you earn.
If you take a Canadian family with one breadwinner and two children, how much tax are they paying? Take a heavy duty mechanic making a $36 per hour working a couple shifts of overtime per month. After receiving an annual bonus he would make close to $100,000 before income tax. A family like this would pay $28,538 in taxes working in Quebec. Working in Alberta or BC they would pay $6,000 less in income tax! This is a huge difference, it could mean the difference between putting kids in hockey, saving for a down payment on a house or saving for retirement.
In Ontario, taxes are slightly lower than Quebec at $24,795 but still over $2,500 higher than BC and Alberta. Manitoba and Nova Scotia are among the highest taxed provinces, where almost an extra $5,000 in taxes goes to the provinces. Income taxes are not the only taxes we face with HST, EI and purchase property taxes costing us hard earned after tax dollars. Income tax is likely the most difficult to swallow as the harder one works it seems like the more we pay in taxes.
Taking the tax difference between British Columbia and Manitoba, a family would save $4,870 per year on $100,000 in income, by living in BC. If this $4,870 was invested at a 4% return over the course of 5 years the BC family would make an additional $32,302 and over the course of 15 years $106,285. What a large difference living in a lower income tax province makes!