Policy Forum: Who Benefits? A Critical Analysis of Canada’s Federal Basic Personal Amount and Personal Tax Credits

Gillian Petit (), Lindsay Tedds and Selvia Arshad ()
Additional contact information
Gillian Petit: Department of Economics, University of Calgary
Selvia Arshad: Department of Economics, University of Calgary

Canadian Tax Journal, 2024, vol. 72, issue 4, 837-857

Abstract: The federal basic personal amount (BPA), the spousal or common-law partner credit (SC), and the eligible dependant credit (EDC) have existed, in some form or other, in Canada’s tax system since its inception in 1917. While the original intention of the credits was to exempt persons from paying tax to ensure that they had enough to cover a fair minimum cost of living, changes in the calculations and amounts, as well as changes in the labour market and family formation, have changed the distributional impacts of these credits. Drawing on critical tax analysis, the authors conduct a distributional analysis of the federal BPA and SC. They conclude by discussing what their results mean for the structure of tax credits dependent on policy objectives moving forward.

Keywords: Canada; federal taxes; personal income tax; income tax credits; tax allocation; distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ctf.ca/EN/Publications/CTJ_Contents/2024CTJ4.aspx (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctf:journl:v:72:y:2024:i:4:p:837-857

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Canadian Tax Foundation, 145 Wellington Street West, Suite 1400, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5J 1H8
https://www.ctf.ca/E ... ns_ListingBooks.aspx

DOI: 10.32721/ctj.2024.72.4.pf.petit

Access Statistics for this article

Canadian Tax Journal is currently edited by Kim Brooks, Kevin Milligan, and Daniel Sandler

More articles in Canadian Tax Journal from Canadian Tax Foundation Canadian Tax Foundation, 145 Wellington Street West, Suite 1400, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5J 1H8.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jim Lyons ().