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Less than a week after Ottawa acknowledged a private-sector petition to preserve the $10,000 annual limit on Tax-Free Savings Accounts, Finance Minister Bill Morneau confirmed the Liberals’ intent to cut the limit to $5,500 in 2016. It will not retroactively cut the limit for the 2015 tax year.

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About 66% of Canadians make too little to qualify for the Liberal’s proposed ‘middle income’ tax cut, while the country’s top earners get stuck with a whopping hike to pay for it.





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So the limit will revert to the old $5,500 maximum on Jan. 1, 2016, the same day the middle-class income tax rate will fall from 22 to 20.5 per cent.

But a group pushing Ottawa to reconsider says the two moves contradict each other: If the Liberals really want to lower the tax burden on the middle class, they should also preserve the $10,000 TFSA limit to provide at least a modicum of parity for private-sector workers saving for a retirement that seldom can match public-sector inflation-indexed defined-benefit pensions.