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The Liberals claim they will spend an extra $4 billion on a child benefit that will increase payouts for all families below household income of $150,000, at which point the benefit will be cut off.

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They offered the example of a one-parent family with one child, earning $30,000 a year, who would get $533 every month under the Liberal benefit, nearly $100 more than under the Conservative plan.

Trudeau admitted his child-benefit plan is under-funded by $2 billion at the moment but said that by making “different choices” the books will balance by the time the party releases its fully costed platform.

There may be revenue issues elsewhere too. The reduction in the middle-class bracket to 20.5% from 22% will cost $3 billion. The hope is that the tax on the wealthy will make it revenue neutral.

However, the experience of other jurisdictions is that major tax hikes at the top rate do not produce the bounty that politicians eager to spend the cash would hope. The British chancellor reduced the top rate to 45% from 50% in 2013 after a move in the opposite direction had yielded only one-third of the forecast revenue.

“I’d be surprised if they got a lot of revenue by raising rates by four percentage points. Taxpayers will respond and find ways to reduce their tax bill by working less, moving to other jurisdictions or whatever,” said Alexandre Laurin, director of research at the CD Howe Institute.

The Liberal tax hike would mean that those earning $200,000 in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island would have to hand over more than 50% of every additional dollar in income to federal and provincial governments.