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“If we have to choose between a working mom who needs child care to keep her job, or someone earning a seven-figure paycheque, let’s help that mom,” Ms. Horwath said in touting her new tax bracket, a proposed amendment to the minority Liberal budget. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask those who are doing the very best, the very best in Ontario, to help out a little bit more,” she said.

“One of the things that’s driving these policy changes is the huge increase in inequality at the top of the income distribution,” said Kevin Milligan, an economist at the University of British Columbia. “One thing that’s striking about that is not just the fact that the 1% is getting more, but the composition of who is in that top 1% is very different from what perceptions might be. People like to think about rich capitalists just getting dividend income or something like that … rich men in monocles top hats, the Monopoly-style caricature of the rich.”

Now, however, the majority of the top 1% — which, in Canada starts around $250,000 a year in income — are earners, he said. Their income comes from wages, not invested capital, and so instead of playboy heirs and reclusive matrons producing nothing but interest from their fortunes, today’s 1% are typically executives, pro athletes, doctors and lawyers.

As a result of this shifting nature of rich people, Prof. Milligan said, raising taxes on them is unlikely to have the NDP’s intended effect of boosting government revenue by $570-million. The rich are still different than you and me — and they have better accountants. As a result, tax-the-rich schemes have paradoxically led to declines in taxable income, as the wealthy seek shelters. Increasing tax without addressing legal methods of avoidance is likely to end in disappointment, Prof. Boadway said.