Working with Taxfiler (T1FF) Data

Wayne Chu Planning Analyst

Social Development, Finance & Administration, City of Toronto

Toronto CDP Face-to-Face, September 11, 2014

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What is Taxfiler Data?

• Income data collected from all Canadians who filed a T1 tax return.

• Taxfilers from the same family are linked based on common links (e.g. spousal SIN, name, address, Canada Child Tax Benefit data.

• Taxfiler provides users with income statistics by family size, age and sex.

Tables in T1FF1. Summary Table

2. Persons by Age Group and by Census Family Type

3. Census Families by Age of Older Partner/Parent and by Number of Children

4. Distribution of Total Income by Census Family Type and Age

5. Census Families by Total Income and by Number of Children

6. Sources of Income by Census Family Type

7. Economic Dependency Profile of Couple Families

8. Economic Dependency Profile of Lone-Parent Families and Persons not in Census Families

9. Labour Income Profile of Couple Families

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Tables in T1FF10. Labour Income Profile of Lone-Parent Families and Persons not in

Census Families

11. Labour Income by Age Group and Gender

12. Employment Insurance by Age Group and Gender

13. Single-Earner and Dual-Earner Census Families by Number of Children

14. Husband-Wife Families by Percentage of Wife’s Contribution to Husband-Wife Employment Income

15. Census Family Units and Children by Age of Children

17. Before-Tax Low Income (LIM)

18. After-Tax Low Income (LIM)

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What other data is available?

In addition to the Family tables, the following datasets are also available on Canadian taxfilers:

• Financial Data and Charitable Donations

• Neighbourhood Income and Demographics

• Seniors

Data Quality

• Most Canadians with income file T1 tax returns, so the coverage of Taxfiler data is good.

• Toronto population count is 2% lower in the T1FF as compared to the Census

• Count of children is 5% higher in the T1FF in Toronto as compared to the 2011 Census. This is partly due to double-counting (e.g. children in single-parent families counted twice).

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Advantages

• Taxfiler is based on a complete database rather than a a sample.

• Contains fewer problematic quality issues than the NHS.

• Data is available annually and at a low-level of geography (Census Tracts)

Disadvantages

• Cannot be cross-tabulated with ethnocultural data.

• Family data is derived and not based on actual reporting of family structure.

• Statistics Canada ensures data is consistent with within-year control totals, but does not actively check cross-time consistency.

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Taxfiler Advantages & Disadvantages

• LICO is no longer offered as a standard product

• LIM-AT does not consider relationship between income and necessities

• Voluntary and therefore not comparable to previous Censuses

• Many users unfamiliar with this dataset

• Data cannot be cross-tabbed with other sociodemographic variables beyond age, sex and family structure

• Taxfiler “families” are derived and therefore may double count some individuals (e.g. children in lone parent families)

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NHS and Taxfiler

National Household Survey

T1FF (Taxfiler)

DEFINITION

• LICOs identify those who are substantially worse off than the average

• income thresholds are determined by analysing expenditure data

• threshold = HH spending 20% or more of their income on necessities than the average HH

• HH that devote a larger share of gross income to basic necessities than the average, would fall into the category of “straightened circumstance”

• as the name implies, it is a low income “cut-off” not a “poverty line”

 

Low-Income Cut-off (LICO)

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DEFINITION

• those living in families that have an after-tax income lower than 50% of the median income for all families in a given year

• Personal income is adjusted for household size.

• as the name implies, it is a low income “measure” not a “poverty line”

Low-Income Measure (LIM)

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For more information contact:

Wayne ChuPlanning Analyst

City of TorontoSocial Development, Finance and Administration

Social Policy, Analysis and Research

Telephone: 416-392-6125

Fax: 416-392-4976

Email: wchu@toronto.ca