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The proposed changes would effectively do three things: limit income-splitting within corporations, raise taxes on some portion of internal passive investments and place new restrictions around capital gains exemptions. Farmers, doctors and other groups have been highly critical of the changes, saying they will deter investments and place undue tax burdens on them.

Consultations on the recent proposals will conclude early next month. The Fraser report did not account for those recent proposals, and instead focused on earlier tax changes that have already been implemented.

Ottawa has ostensibly taken steps in recent years to add to the tax burden on high-wealth individuals while scaling back taxes on the middle class. In 2016, it pared back its second-lowest rate, which applies to Canadians with annual salaries between $45,916 and $91,831, to 20.5 per cent from 22 per cent. It also hiked tax rates on those earning more than $202,800, to 33 per cent from 29 per cent.

But those changes have come alongside the removal of various tax credits and the Harper-era income-splitting policy, which have on the whole raised income taxes on the middle-class, the Fraser report says. Ottawa has so far scrapped public transit credits, children’s fitness credits and education and textbook credits.

“The government in its communications is not talking about these tax credits, it is only talking about the rate reduction. And that’s why they’re wrong in their assessment,” said Charles Lammam, the Fraser researcher who wrote the report.