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The government expects to take in almost $300 million a year by folding an existing surtax into existing tax rates, he said.

Those changes could mean thousands of dollars a year to some individuals, but their impact depends very much on individual circumstances, he said.

“It’s stealth taxation,” he said.

According to the budget, an average Ontarian earning $95,000 a year will now owe $168 more in provincial income tax in 2018-19.

And unlike some of those giveaways promised in the budget, the tax hike is retroactive to the start of the year, Carson noted.

Photo by Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Tobacco taxes are also on the way up, $4.52 including HST on a carton of cigarettes Thursday and then an increase of the same amount in 2019.

All this new revenue will still only cover a relatively small portion of the increases in spending in the 2018 Ontario budget, so the government projects six years of red ink.

The budget plans for a shortfall or deficit of $6.7 billion in 2018-19, $5.9 billion in 2019-20, $5.8 billion in 2020-21, $4.9 billion in 2021-22, $3.3 billion in 2022-23 and $1.8 billion in 2023-24 — $28.4 billion in accumulated operating deficits over six years.

Ontario expects to be paying $16.5 billion in annual interest payments on its debt by the time it’s projected to balance the books again in 2024-25, up from $12 billion a year now.

The budget estimates that the province’s net debt, which now stands at about $308 billion, the highest of any non-national government in the world, will rise to just over $400 billion by 2024-25.

aartuso@postmedia.com