Designing a Wealth Tax for Today’s Robber Barons

Under threat from a volatile United States, Canada needs to chart its own path to build a more self-reliant, just, and equitable economy.

A time like this calls for nation-building: the country can’t afford austerity or cutbacks, nor can it afford to let the superrich call the shots in its economy and public policy.

Canada urgently needs robust public investment in physical and social infrastructure: new homes, schools, hospitals, transit, and green energy. It also needs to reduce the extreme concentration of wealth at the top, which distorts democracy and frays the social fabric much.

A wealth tax focused on those at the very top — less than 1 percent of Canadians — could help achieve both these goals. Such a wealth tax could raise huge amounts of public revenue to put toward building infrastructure and critical social investments, while blunting the growing power of the wealthiest few and creating a more level playing field on which working-class Canadians can thrive.

This report first lays out the context, examining the extent and effects of wealth inequality today and the strong public support and growing international momentum for a wealth tax.

Central to its analysis, the report then assesses the significant revenue potential of a 1 percent tax on net wealth above $10 million — with higher brackets and rates on wealth above $50 million and $100 million — projecting it could raise nearly half a trillion dollars for Canada over ten years. Key counterarguments to such a tax are addressed and shown to be largely off base.

In its conclusion, the report outlines some of the transformative public investments that the revenue generated by a wealth tax could fund to build a stronger and more equitable Canada.

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