A Taxing Question

Under Canada’s tax system, one-earner families with children are at least as well off financially as two-earner families with children, say economists Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky. Despite a growing sentiment that Canada’s income tax system discriminates against stay-at-home parents, the researchers found in a study of identical household incomes that one-earner families had slightly more income available for consumption than two-earner families. Taxes, work-related expenditures and non-taxation of household work were taken into account. The comparison does not apply to single-parent families.