Are you in the top 5?

An annual income of $89,000 was enough to place a Canadian among the top five per cent of individual tax-filers in 2004, according to the most recent data released Monday by Statistics Canada.


The top one per cent of earners was limited to those who raked in $181,000 a year, while membership in the super-elite club consisting of the richest 0.01 per cent of Canadians required an annual paycheque of $2.8 million.


Three-quarters of the top five per cent of earners were men, StatsCan reports, even though men comprise a minority (48 per cent) of individual income tax-filers. The group becomes even more male-heavy at the top end of the income spectrum: just one in nine of the top 0.01 per cent of earners was a woman.


Though their membership in the very highest-earning group hasn’t increased over the last two decades, women made gains among the top five per cent, with their ranks increasing by 10 per cent since 1982.


Almost half (48 per cent) of the top five per cent of taxpayers live in Ontario, followed distantly by Quebec (18 per cent), Alberta (15 per cent) and British Columbia (13). Three out of 10 families with incomes above $250,000 lived in Toronto, followed by Montreal (11 per cent), Vancouver and Calgary (both eight per cent).


Differences between Canada and the U.S. are most striking at the upper end of the income scale, StatsCan found. In Canada, the top five per cent of earners made at least $89,000 in 2004, while the cut-off for that group in the U.S. was $165,000. The threshold for the top 0.01 pr cent in Canada was $2.8 million, but an American would need to make $9.4 million to belong to that same club. With Canadian dollar reached parity with US dollar, the gap may be narrowed a little now.


The study used tax returns and survey data to trace the characteristics of the richest Canadians.