Infographic: Few B.C. families will benefit from income-splitting

A helping hand—for Alberta

The feds have finally implemented their long-awaited promise to introduce income splitting for couples with children. It applies to the 2014 tax year, but odds are, it doesn’t apply to you. That’s because a majority of child-raising British Columbians don’t qualify.

The rule permits higher-earning spouses to assign $50,000 of their income to partners, taxing that income at a lower rate and saving them up to $2,000. In short, it benefits families with a primary breadwinner—with the exception of single parents. The problem, as the figures below show, is that this break, estimated to cost $2 billion in lost tax revenue, appears to benefit wealthier regions the most. High earners, after all, have more tax to lose, and thus the most to gain.