The growth of the number of incomes over $250K leads me to ask how many of those are bureaucrats? With the explosion of bureaucracy I predict that the upper management have been duly compensated.
That's a very interesting thought. So I just took a quick look at Ontario's 2025 sunshine list (https://www.ontario.ca/public-sector-salary-disclosure/2025/all-sectors-and-seconded-employees/) and I see there were exactly 7,690 public sector employees in the province who earned more than $250k. There'll also be federal workers in the province who (I assume) aren't on the provincial list. Those are significant numbers, but they're almost certainly less than 10% of the total CRA numbers.
I also am a reader / watcher of The Line and I am aware of Matt's thesis which I found "interesting."
Why the quotes? Well, first it WAS interesting. But, as a retired accountant (retired in Canada - can't afford elsewhere!) I had been hearing the threat to leave for, oh, forever. And, of course, that was all it was: a threat. Until it wasn't. And now, it continues to not be simply a threat, I am told.
I have been retired for six years now (I'm 75) and as I neared the end of my career I found that there were more folks who emigrated than previously. I know that when I speak with or read material from my former confreres that side of consulting is a very quite considerable industry now.
I suggest that this is simply going to be anecdotal for quite some time as the nature of this issue, as Gurney noted and as you have determined, is that no one really keeps statistics on this sort of thing. Hell, Canada doesn't even keep stats on folks who are SUPPOSED to leave, forget those who CHOOSE to silently leave.
In order to get better data - albeit, still anecdotal - one could speak with tax practitioners, both accountants (my profession) and lawyers who specialize in cross border taxation and simply ask if the level of their "busy-ness" has increased. But actual hard, statistical level data? Not going to be available under the current system; in truth, you should consider that good on a societal level as to have to register when leaving the country strikes me as, well, let's simply call it very unwelcome levels of "observation" of Canadians.
The growth of the number of incomes over $250K leads me to ask how many of those are bureaucrats? With the explosion of bureaucracy I predict that the upper management have been duly compensated.
That's a very interesting thought. So I just took a quick look at Ontario's 2025 sunshine list (https://www.ontario.ca/public-sector-salary-disclosure/2025/all-sectors-and-seconded-employees/) and I see there were exactly 7,690 public sector employees in the province who earned more than $250k. There'll also be federal workers in the province who (I assume) aren't on the provincial list. Those are significant numbers, but they're almost certainly less than 10% of the total CRA numbers.
Thanks again very much for the statistically-driven analysis.
I also am a reader / watcher of The Line and I am aware of Matt's thesis which I found "interesting."
Why the quotes? Well, first it WAS interesting. But, as a retired accountant (retired in Canada - can't afford elsewhere!) I had been hearing the threat to leave for, oh, forever. And, of course, that was all it was: a threat. Until it wasn't. And now, it continues to not be simply a threat, I am told.
I have been retired for six years now (I'm 75) and as I neared the end of my career I found that there were more folks who emigrated than previously. I know that when I speak with or read material from my former confreres that side of consulting is a very quite considerable industry now.
I suggest that this is simply going to be anecdotal for quite some time as the nature of this issue, as Gurney noted and as you have determined, is that no one really keeps statistics on this sort of thing. Hell, Canada doesn't even keep stats on folks who are SUPPOSED to leave, forget those who CHOOSE to silently leave.
In order to get better data - albeit, still anecdotal - one could speak with tax practitioners, both accountants (my profession) and lawyers who specialize in cross border taxation and simply ask if the level of their "busy-ness" has increased. But actual hard, statistical level data? Not going to be available under the current system; in truth, you should consider that good on a societal level as to have to register when leaving the country strikes me as, well, let's simply call it very unwelcome levels of "observation" of Canadians.
Thanks for this.
The rise in high income earner tax filings could be sell off of assets & taking tax hits to get the money out of Canada
I guess that's possible. Although, sadly, I don't think there's any way to identify that in the data that's public.