Income-splitting announcement made against advice of top public servant

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced major fiscal policies in Vaughan, Ont., last fall against the advice of Canada's senior public servant, who said Parliament should be informed first, a newly disclosed document indicates.

Harper's unveiling of the $4.6-billion-a-year package of income-splitting and richer child-benefit cheques was made Oct. 30, about a month after he was advised that the House of Commons was the proper place to do so.

Who gets the biggest share of the benefits from Tory ‘family tax cut?’

OTTAWA - Just over half of the money the federal government is set to spend on child care will go to parents of teenagers or families who do not pay to put their kids in daycare, says a new report by the parliamentary budget officer.

Jean-Denis Frechette's latest report comes days after the Conservatives introduced legislation to enact its so-called "family tax cut" — a multibillion-dollar suite of measures that includes the controversial income-splitting plan.

Income-Splitting ‘Like Socialism For The Wealthy,' Former Harper Speechwriter Michael Taube Writes

A former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the Harper government’s income-splitting plan is “like socialism for the wealthy,” and is warning the Tories that the policy is bad politics.

“When you really think about income splitting, it’s the equivalent of state-run socialism for the wealthy,” Michael Taube wrote in a column in the Toronto Sun.

“A few of us will shift income to get a tax credit directly from the government, paid for by taxpayers. Doesn’t have much to do with free enterprise and the private sector, I’m afraid.”

Income Splitting Won't Help Poor And Will Cost $2.2. Billion, Budget Watchdog Says

The Conservatives’ controversial income-splitting plan will do nothing for low-income families but will cost the government $2.2. billion and will eliminate jobs, Canada’s budget watchdog said Tuesday.

The plan, promised in the 2011 election, would allow one spouse to transfer up to $50,000 of taxable income to their lower-income spouse. This allows the top-earning spouse to avoid a higher tax bracket and the household would pay less in taxes overall. It only applies to households with children under the age of 18.

Income splitting helps fewer than 1 in 6 families, PBO says

The parliamentary budget officer says the family tax cut announced last year will cost the federal government about $2.2 billion this year and will benefit fewer than one in six households.

The program is meant to fulfill the Conservatives' 2011 election promise to bring in income splitting for families once the budget was balanced.

"The FTC [family tax credit] benefits about two million households, or 15 per cent of the Canadian total," a newly released report by the PBO says.

It goes on to say "middle and middle-high income households benefit most because they are more likely to have a family income and income tax structure conducive to FTC gains."

Harper's Family Tax Cut Credit Does Not Deliver True Income-Splitting

Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the federal campaign trail in 2011 pledged to allow spouses and common-law partners with children to split their incomes on their tax returns once the budget deficit was eliminated.

This would mean that when one partner is in a higher marginal tax bracket, that person would be able to split some income with the other person. When the money moves to the other return it is taxed at a lower rate and they save tax dollars.

Income Splitting – Just Another Neo-Con Romp For The Rich To Skin the Poor

This month, the same month the Conservative government unveiled income splitting, its signature gift to the core of its base – wealthy, single-income 1950s era ”Father Knows Best” families – Food Bank Canada reported that more than 840,000 Canadians are forced to resort to food banks to feed their families.

Five years after the economy’s downturn, 170,000 more people were using food banks than before the recession. “Alarming” was the term Food Bank Canada used to describe the situation.

It investigated the ‘’’why’’’ of food banks. The picture isn’t pretty.

Tory income-splitting tax policy: It's about creating and preserving gender inequality

A fundamental purpose of the Harper Government's ideologically driven income-splitting tax scheme is to undermine women's equality, Queen's University tax law professor Kathleen Lahey told the Parkland Institute's annual fall conference yesterday.

That's a statement that may cause some readers to react with skepticism -- but if you're one of them, let me suggest it's because you haven’t really been paying attention.

Dr. Lahey told a plenary session of the conference how, back in 1982 when the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted, women were almost full citizens of Canada. Almost.

New Commercial Promoting Tory Tax Cuts Paid For By Taxpayers

An ad touting the Conservative government's new tax cuts has hit the airwaves and it's being paid for by Canadian taxpayers.

The ad, set in suburbia, promotes four tax measures that have not yet been approved by Parliament and which are aimed at families with young children. The tax cuts are expected to cost $26.8 billion over six years and to benefit around four million families, according to the government's own figures.

Most families lose out in Harper's new tax plan

Heading into the 2015 election season, the Harper government recently unveiled a bundle of what have been referred to as "family-focused" tax cuts. However, with several figures and complex lingo to sift through, many families across Canada are wondering what types of families these policies are going to benefit and how.

The plans are worth approximately $4.6 billion annually and incorporate income-splitting for families with children under 18. Firstly, the Universal Child Care Benefit will increase from $60 per month to $160 per month for youth under six years old. If your child is aged 7-17 your benefit will be $60.

Watch Stephen Lewis rip apart the "absurd" Conservative family tax plan

Stephen Lewis is fired up.

In a keynote address to the Child Care 2020 conference in Winnipeg, the former Canadian ambassador to the UN ripped apart the Conservatives' claim that their new income splitting tax scheme and expanded Universal Child Care benefit will offer meaningful help to families struggling with their child care needs.

Back to the kitchen, Mrs. Cleaver: Income-splitting and social engineering

Stephen Harper is gearing up for the next election with a plan for rewarding “hardworking Canadian families”. Or at least a few of them.

In truth, Harper plans to give something to all families by enriching the Universal Child Care Benefit by $60 a month per child — thereby providing parents with an extra $2 a day.

Having taken care of the “fairness” issue with this toonie-a-day (almost enough to buy a child an ice cream cone) Harper goes on to propose what really interests him: a new tax cut that moves in the direction of ending progressive taxation, the long-established notion that the rich should pay higher tax rates than the rest.

Income splitting would not benefit low-income single parents, minister says

Income splitting would not benefit single parents because the majority are considered low income, says the Minister of State for Social Development, Candice Bergen.

In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, host Evan Solomon asked Bergen whether the government would consider adopting income splitting for single parents — similar to what is offered in France where a parent could split their income with their child, instead of a spouse.

A windfall for the rich, a sop for everyone else

Everyone was expecting Prime Minister Harper to announce a significant change to the tax system Thursday — one that would allow income-splitting for families with children aged 18 and younger.

He did a lot more than that. He basically delivered much of the 2015 budget.

According to the material provided with Harper’s announcement, the total cost of the proposed tax changes amounts to $3.1 billion this year and $4.6 billion in 2015-16. In the February budget the government forecast a deficit of $2.9 billion this year and a surplus of $6.4 billion in 2015-16. Clearly, the better-than-expected outcome for the last fiscal year has carried forward into this year and next year, allowing the government to make yesterday’s announcements. (We won’t know the final numbers until Joe Oliver delivers his long-awaited fall Economic and Fiscal Update next month.)

Harper’s income-splitting program isn’t great policy, or good politics

Today Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a massive change to the way we assess and collect income tax in this country.  In 2011, the Conservative Party platform promised “the Family Tax Cut” that would give “spouses the choice to share up to $50,000 of their household income, for federal tax-purposes,” when the books were balanced, at a cost (they projected) of $625 million in this fiscal year and $2.5 billion in the next.  The platform argued income-splitting would “ensure that the federal income tax system respects and supports the choices that families make.”  Fun-fact: the only other federal party to promise income-splitting in 2011 was the Green Party.

The Conservatives Propose Family Policy for a Bygone Age

The Harper government’s tax package released Thursday is a throwback to the family policies of a bygone era. It turns its back on the pressing need for affordable, high quality child care; introduces a new tax measure which will mainly benefit traditional families with a stay at home spouse; and brings back the old family allowance in a modified form.

The government’s token response to calls for a national child care program is to modestly increase the Child Care Expense Deduction – representing a tiny fraction ($395 million) of the government’s package exceeding $26 billion. This will hardly make child care any more affordable, and will do nothing to create badly needed new spaces. The deduction has to be claimed by the lowest earning spouse and the increase of $1,000 per child will translate into just $150 per year for those in the bottom tax bracket.

The promise Stephen Harper made to voters in 2011 – and broke in 2014

The 2011 Conservative Party of Canada election platform (picture with link above) made a very specific promise to voters who were parents with children under the age of 18. Here is how the Family Tax Cut, as it was called in 2011, was presented to voters:

…couples with the same number of children and the same total income are not treated equally. A two-income couple, in which one spouse earns more than the other, pays more federal income tax than a two-income couple in which the two spouses earn equal amounts. And a single-income couple pays even more.

We will soon be in a position to take an historic step forward to achieve greater fairness for families. We will establish the Family Tax Cut   : income sharing for couples with dependent children under 18 years of age. This will give spouses the choice to share up to $50,000 of their household income, for federal income-tax purposes. This important new measure will be implemented when the federal budget is balanced within our next full term in office.

The results will be significant tax relief for approximately 1.8 million Canadian families – each of them saving, on average, $1,300 per year. Most of all, it will ensure that the federal income tax system respects and supports the choices that families make. It will increase fairness for single-income couples. And it will ease the burden on double-income families, by allowing them to keep more of what they earn and to benefit more from having a second income.

Income splitting won’t help parents who really need a tax break

The Harper government’s parental income splitting plan is designed in such a way that guarantees it will only make a difference to the richest Canadians. By design, it cannot help those who need assistance with child care the most.

Single parents cannot get any help from income splitting at all – it takes two adult taxpayers to take advantage of income splitting. Most single parents are women, and women’s average earnings are much lower than men’s. Furthermore, women are often caught in the constant bind of low earnings and not having enough income to pay for affordable child care so they can spend more time in paid work.

Stephen Harper’s income-splitting plan would shortchange Ontarians

It’s not merely unfair, but unaffordable. And unfathomably un-federal.

Not to split hairs, but income-splitting is perhaps the most indefensible and insidious campaign gimmick ever conjured up by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

It’s not just a bad tax break. It’d be a bad break for Ontarians in particular, who would pay the highest price for a discriminatory Tory ploy that could make the rich richer and the poor poorer while impoverishing the province.

Who wins with income-splitting? Rich Albertans.

If Stephen Harper’s goal was to design a tax policy to make income inequality in this country even worse, he can pat himself on the back. That’s exactly what the Conservatives’ family income-splitting tax scheme will do.

Research from various organizations across the political spectrum has demonstrated already that this tax policy, projected to cost the federal treasury $3 billion in 2015, would be an expensive and inequitable tax giveaway.