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Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

Your federal and provincial income taxes are way too low. If you click on the link below, you'll see BC has an average tax rate of 25.8% on 100K.

https://neuvoo.ca/tax-calculator/Ontario-100000#:~:text=%245....

Taxes are killer in the Great White North.

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> Taxes are killer in the Great White North.

Fortunately this pays for an extensive social security network including health care (though sadly not dental!)

I'd be interested in total take-home pay when comparing Canadian taxes to US taxes + employer-sponsored healthcare coverage.

Ya, I hear you there. That's actually why I built this, was to help calculate that, but there are so many variables in that calculation, I decided to start with I would just figure out what would be left of your paycheque each month and then users can compare against their US bank statements. Its rough, but hopefully its enough to give people considering making a move enough information to decide.

I think the difference in taxes are a very minor factor compared to the difference in pre-tax compensation in the US vs Canada.

they sure are! From the digging around I have done, you can expect a 40% cut from a Bay area salary to Vancouver. The question then becomes, what sort of standard of living could I expect to maintain after taking such a large cut, and that's what I was trying to surface with this calculator.

It's a triple whammy. Compensation is lower, taxes are higher, food is more expensive. Only healthcare is cheaper. It's mostly paid for, prescriptions included, if you work for a company with a decent health plan. Cars are also more expensive overall (ownership + insurance).

I think that’s an unfair comparison.

I wouldn’t recommend looking for an American lifestyle in Canada.

> though sadly not dental!

or prescriptions

It is a nice place to raise a family.

The motto of Canada is “Peace, order and good government,” which is in stark contrast to America’s “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I just compared those numbers with the tax calculator from https://simpletax.ca/calculator and they are roughly the same. However, my numbers line up with that when you factor in tax deductible expenses on things like RRSP. If you remove the RRSP line from the expenses table, you should see that 100k in base salary lines up to the articles claimed $27.7k. The numbers arent exact, but they are pretty close. I will look further into the discrepancy.

Yep, I think you are right. I'm subtracting taxes from "total income" right now, instead of "taxable income", so I'm not excluding the contributions! Thanks for pointing that out. I'll address that shortly.

push a change to address this bug. thanks for pointing it out!

Deleted my comment as I wasn't sure if I'm exactly right either. The reference for calculating payroll deductions is as follows:

https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pub/t412...

Formula is a bit complicated

I noticed. Thanks for posting your initial response. It lead me to check how I was calculating, and I think you were right. I have addressed it now, but I'm sure this wont 100% reflect the Canadian tax calculation, but based on comparisons with other tax calculators, it seems to be coming pretty close. Where I know it will be way off is in the "additional annual income" table, as I made no effort to classify those. Everything is just considered "income" and taxed at the same federal/provincial rates.

I am pretty sure I pay more in Oregon when you include healthcare expenditures. State income tax plus federal plus fica plus monthly premiums for spouse and kiddo ads up to a huge chunk of my take home (over 35% of my gross earnings).

Ya, I was pretty surprised as well. I expected Canadian taxes to be much higher, but they seem to be fairly competitive actually, especially when you factor in other costs as you pointed out. Overall, the biggest detriment appears to be the massive salary cut you would have to take, and less so the taxes.

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