Income-splitting changes to be announced

[darklord700]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inco...ries-1.2817684

Looks like it'll be limited to $50K of income and $2K in tax savings for those would benefit from this. Would this impact any of you in CP?

[You Need a Thneed]

Single income family here, so it will help me significantly.

[Regorium]

It'll hurt me because my taxes will probably go up to pay for this.

It also supports a lifestyle that I don't agree with (single income families), but that's of course a matter of opinion.

[V]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Single income family here, so it will help me significantly.

Same here, but the article says tax savings would be capped at $2k, so I don't know if it's significant. Also the fact that Trudeau will kill it as soon as he gets in doesn't sound promising to me.

[darklord700]

$2K max tax savings is rather innocuous. Tories can now fullfilll their last election promise without infuriating too many voters.

[cracher]

Ugh. I just paid a lawyer an obscene amount to give my wife class K shares so I can income split in a cleaner fashion. This sucks.

Edit: Having some trouble digesting this article due to my less than rudimentary understanding of this stuff. So they are saying that you can income split from the personal side as opposed to doing through an incorporation? They way I read it, the rule changes don't have any effect on those who salary+dividend to the wife through a prof corp...

[bizaro86]

I like this, since I'm newly a one-income family. The 2k cap is too bad (from my perspective) but probably understandable. I wonder how that will be implemented, seems like it would be complicated to administer. It will be interesting to see if you can transfer tax-at-source payments or not. Because otherwise I'll get a ~20k refund and my wife will need to make a ~$18k payment, which seems a bit silly.

Also, I think there's a bit of an economic efficiency argument that can be made. For round math, say you have a higher income earner making $100/hr, and the second spouse who could earn $65/hr. If the first spouse is paying 40% taxes, and the second spouse stays home with the kids (and has no income so 0% marginal tax rate), the marginal family earnings from an extra hours work is $60 for the higher income earner and $65 for the stay-at-home parent.

So in that situation the right family choice would be for the higher income earner (presumably more productive) to stay home part-time and for the second spouse to work a few hours to burn up their low tax bracket. That's an economically inefficient outcome that this should prevent.

[opendoor]

What an awful idea and a waste of money. At least they watered it down by capping the amount. When they were first talking about this my friend who is a partner in a law firm figured he'd get over $10K in tax breaks (assuming provincial taxes were included in this which I believe is the case). Meanwhile other friends with children who both work and make less than half he does combined would've seen nothing.

Should provide a nice hit to provincial revenues too if what I'm reading is correct. I believe provincial taxes are based on federally taxable income, so every province is going to lose revenue from this unless they raise everyone's taxes to make up the difference.

[darklord700]

Good point, opendoor. AB's coffer won't be hit as we have the flat 10% tax. But those Eastern Canada provinces with steep progressive brackets will be hit harder.

[Calgary14]

Originally Posted by cracher

Ugh. I just paid a lawyer an obscene amount to give my wife class K shares so I can income split in a cleaner fashion. This sucks.

Edit: Having some trouble digesting this article due to my less than rudimentary understanding of this stuff. So they are saying that you can income split from the personal side as opposed to doing through an incorporation? They way I read it, the rule changes don't have any effect on those who salary+dividend to the wife through a prof corp...

The income splitting completed within your corporation is totally separate from the announcement today. The announcement today focuses on personal income. What matters here is the income mix you and your spouse receive from the corp (ie salary, dividends etc) which can then be split.

However since the cap is $2k savings, the max of $50k to be split is irrelevant for most. It may get better for families though if they increase the UCCB which they're now talking about.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by opendoor

What an awful idea and a waste of money. At least they watered it down by capping the amount. When they were first talking about this my friend who is a partner in a law firm figured he'd get over $10K in tax breaks (assuming provincial taxes were included in this which I believe is the case). Meanwhile other friends with children who both work and make less than half he does combined would've seen nothing.

Tax cuts that target certain groups but not others are always because the government wants to provide a financial incentive for a particular behaviour. If The Harper Government really cared about providing a tax break to all Canadian families, then they would have announced an across-the-board rebate/deductible/credit/etc. to every taxpayer with dependent children under the age of 18. They didn't do that, though. Hmmm...why might that be? What behaviour might they be trying to encourage with this?

[foshizzle11]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

The income splitting completed within your corporation is totally separate from the announcement today. The announcement today focuses on personal income. What matters here is the income mix you and your spouse receive from the corp (ie salary, dividends etc) which can then be split.

However since the cap is $2k savings, the max of $50k to be split is irrelevant for most. It may get better for families though if they increase the UCCB which they're now talking about.

What is the UCCB??

[Slava]

Originally Posted by foshizzle11

What is the UCCB??

Universal Child Care Benefit. I think thats the measly $100 a month they give to help with daycare costs.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Slava

Universal Child Care Benefit. I think thats the measly $100 a month they give to help with daycare costs.

Child care costs.

Not everyone believes daycare should be the only solution.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Child care costs.

Not everyone believes daycare should be the only solution.

Agreed. I strongly oppose the concept of children entirely.

[Jacks]

Won't help me at all but I still support it. Personally I think it should be easier for people to raise their own children.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Child care costs.

Not everyone believes daycare should be the only solution.

I wasn't trying to suggest any particular way of doing things. Regardless though, the government brought that in as a measure to help with those costs instead of a plan to create more spaces. Its a drop in the bucket because almost any parent will tell you that in Calgary those costs are roughly ten times that figure.

[darklord700]

I think child care deduction of $7K per child should be increased. $1K a month is the minium of child care you can find in Calgary. We are still missing $5K deduction for my kid every year.

[Calgary14]

The key here is the maximum savings of $2k. Due to this it really only benefits families with a combined income of around $75k annually. Anything beyond that and it doesn't benefit most people. Without the maximum of $2k it would have meant the splitting could benefit people who have a much higher income ($125k annually or more) while their spouse has a lower income. I think that was the original idea but they made a last minute change.

My guess is that they try to make up for it by increasing the UCCB (universal child care benefit) from the super-low $100 per month it's currently at.

[Slava]

If they wanted to do something that would matter, they should just plain lower taxes. Cut the top from 29% to say 25% and reduce the lower brackets as well. These nickel and dime "solutions" just annoy me.