High-income families in Ontario pay majority of all taxes in province

When talking about taxes and designing policy, politicians should first get the facts straight about how taxes are distributed.

Take, for example, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s recent claim that Ontarians are “taxed to death” and need additional tax relief from the federal government. Does this accurately reflect the reality of the tax burden in Ontario? Are all Ontarians taxed to death, or are taxes primarily concentrated on certain groups? The answers to these questions should inform any proposed tax change, but politicians rarely communicate this to the public.

In fact, as noted in our new Fraser Institute study, high-earning Ontarian families carry the majority of the tax burden in the province.

Specifically, the top 20% of income-earning families in Ontario — those earning $261,620 o