Platform Crunch: Comparing four parties’ tax cut and cash transfers promises

Tax and cash transfer promises are flying fast and furiously in the first week of Canada’s 45th federal election.

David Macdonald

2025-03-28

Earlier in the week, the Liberals came out with a promise to cut the lowest federal personal income tax rate from 15 per cent to 14 per cent and also cut the value of tax credits to match.

The Conservatives have the exact same plan except they’d drop it to 12.75 per cent (over two years), as well as exempting an additional $10,000 in seniors’ working income from taxation.

The NDP was the third party to join the frenzy. They’re promising to increase the basic personal exemption to $19,500. They’d also target cash transfers by doubling the Canada Disability Benefit to $4,800 and boosting the Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income seniors. They’d pay for part of this by reinstating fairer taxation for capital gains, which was cancelled just before the election (of an inclusion rate of 66 per cent on capital gains over 250,000).

The Greens are in here too, promising to increase the personal exemption to $40,000, just like the NDP but to a much higher level.