Thank you very much for this invitation.
I would like to quickly go over the results of a study on implicit tax rates that will be published tomorrow. I am the author of this study with Michaël Robert-Angers, and we will be publishing it tomorrow.
Implicit taxes do not represent most of the taxes people pay on various incomes; rather, it is the variation in income taxes that you have to pay if you make $1 or $100 more. I have prepared some presentations. I don't know if everyone has a copy. We are talking about variations in the tax burden based on variations in income. Differences in the tax burden are of course a result of increases in income taxes, increased social security taxes if you make more money, but also the decrease in tax benefits. It's very important to understand that.
Let's go to slide 3 on page 2 of this presentation. You will understand that the analysis is based on average income. In Quebec, the average income is $39,697 while in Ontario and Canada, it is nearly $43,000. How does making 1% more than the average income, $1 more than the average income, translate into the fiscal burden? How much more do you pay in income taxes, how much more do you pay in social contributions, and how much less do you get back in tax benefits from the federal and provincial governments?