Personal Finance

Average TOTAL PERSONAL TAX rate including ALL forms of taxes and obligatory gov fees?

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  • Sep 27th, 2010 10:16 pm
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Deal Addict
Sep 22, 2009
2760 posts
228 upvotes
Canadia

Average TOTAL PERSONAL TAX rate including ALL forms of taxes and obligatory gov fees?

I'm wondering what the effective total tax rate is for the median person, including all forms of tax. This would aggregate all tax costs including:

Income tax
Sales tax (based on average consumption basket)
Land transfer tax (based on average revenue from this source per year, divided by working population)
Vehicle taxes
Property tax (again, expected property tax of the average or median home-owner living in the median home)
Other municipal taxes
Other provincial taxes
Other federal taxes
Other taxes, mandatory government fees, and miscellaneous not included above (things like eco fees, and other hidden/stealth taxes)

Add them all up, divide by average salary or something along those lines, to find the total tax burden (as a percentage of personal income) on the average person. I suspect this would need to be drilled down by province due to significant differences in provincial tax policy.

Since not everyone owns a car, our hypothetical Mr Average will probably own a fraction of a car, and pay the related taxes and mandatory fees on that fraction. Same idea for all other taxes and fees which are not applicable to the entire population; they will be spread to find an average value.

I am not sure it would be in government's best interest to publish such a number, because I have a feeling it ain't pretty. But before I go to the effort of calculating it myself I'd like to check if some organization of individual has already done it. Have checked Statistics Canada and some think tanks, and have found some useful data, but not the specific number I asked for above.

Is this number available somewhere? Please post exact link!
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6 replies
Deal Addict
User avatar
Apr 1, 2006
3370 posts
346 upvotes
Brisbane
Totally depends on the city, province, income, age, etc.

The easiest way to do it is determine total government personal tax revenues and divide by the average household income times the number of households. Otherwise business tax revenues get involved and mess it up.
Deal Addict
Dec 28, 2006
2497 posts
138 upvotes
Saskatoon
nauru wrote: I am not sure it would be in government's best interest to publish such a number, because I have a feeling it ain't pretty. But before I go to the effort of calculating it myself I'd like to check if some organization of individual has already done it.


Inevitably someone is going to suggest the "tax freedom day" calculated I mean made up out of thin air by the Faker I mean Fraser Institute. Then inevitably I will have to point out the many ways this number is flawed.
Conquistador wrote: One other thing you should know for future reference. If it is on the subject of taxes, listen to ghostryder. He knows his stuff.
Deal Fanatic
Feb 21, 2006
5148 posts
101 upvotes
Another way to look at it might be government spending as a percentage of GDP. That gives you a number for government's cut averaged over all Canadian persons and corporations that generate some form of value. Here's a table: http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2008/03/g ... ge-of.html. Canada comes in at 48.2% if this table is correct.

So I would guess that the answer you'll get from different sources and methods of calculation will probably all come in at around 50%.
Deal Addict
Sep 22, 2009
2760 posts
228 upvotes
Canadia
Aske001 wrote: Another way to look at it might be government spending as a percentage of GDP. That gives you a number for government's cut averaged over all Canadian persons and corporations that generate some form of value. Here's a table: http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2008/03/g ... ge-of.html. Canada comes in at 48.2% if this table is correct.

So I would guess that the answer you'll get from different sources and methods of calculation will probably all come in at around 50%.
Thanks for the suggestion. What I'm interested in is the average total personal tax rate though. Just using government spending =/= total tax revenue. And total tax revenue =/= solely personal tax expenses in all forms at all levels of government.
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Deal Addict
Sep 22, 2009
2760 posts
228 upvotes
Canadia
Truemana wrote: Totally depends on the city, province, income, age, etc.

The easiest way to do it is determine total government personal tax revenues and divide by the average household income times the number of households. Otherwise business tax revenues get involved and mess it up.


On top of this though there are all the fees, surcharges, levies and duties which government doesn't officially call tax, even though they are taxes. Not a straightforward task to find reliable numbers for all the hidden taxes at all levels of government. Will continue to grow this thread before diving into calculating this number myself.
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Deal Addict
Jun 27, 2005
1071 posts
148 upvotes
Toronto, ON
Crazy taxes!

Not only do I get hit with ~30% tax when I receive my income. I get hit with 13% for almost everything I purchase. Sounds like around 50% sounds right... although, taking the average of everyone in Canada, it might be lower.

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