{"id":114071,"date":"2026-07-03T01:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/114071\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T01:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:50:13","slug":"jay-goldberg-canadas-high-taxes-are-scaring-away-top-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/114071\/","title":{"rendered":"JAY GOLDBERG: Canada\u2019s high taxes are scaring away top talent"},"content":{"rendered":"

See more Toronto Sun on Google \u2014 save as a Preferred Source<\/a><\/p>\n

A Canadian-based National Hockey League team hasn\u2019t won the Stanley Cup since 1993. And, with the Carolina Hurricanes capturing hockey\u2019s top prize in mid-June, Canadian fans will have to wait yet another year to see if Lord Stanley\u2019s cup will finally return north of the 49th parallel.<\/p>\n

This drought for Canadian teams is unprecedented in the history of hockey. Never have Canadian teams \u2014 numbering seven of 32 NHL squads \u2014 failed to win hockey\u2019s top prize for 10 years, let alone over 30.<\/p>\n

What could explain this? Bad luck is certainly a factor. But so too is a difficulty attracting top talent, which actually has a lot to do with taxes.<\/p>\n

As a recent study<\/a> makes clear, taxes certainly play a role in where star players choose to sign, as their take-home pay is impacted by the top marginal tax rate where they choose to play.<\/p>\n

Consider the example of a hockey player who earns a $750,000 salary, which is quite low when one considers that star players in hockey can earn well above $10 million a year. If a player signs with a team in the state of Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Washington, or Nevada, that player doesn\u2019t have to pay any state income tax whatsoever, leading to a tax rate of 31.27%. Compare that with the highest-tax jurisdiction in the sport of hockey, Quebec, where a player must pay 48.57% of their income in taxes. That reduces that player\u2019s take-home pay by some $130,000.<\/p>\n

And, again, that\u2019s just considering a salary of $750,000, which is at the lowest end of the spectrum in the sport of hockey. When a player signs a $10-million contract, for example, the tax implications become much more profound, upwards of $1 million.<\/p>\n

This story about top talent being attracted to lower-tax jurisdictions has much bigger implications than tipping the scales in terms of where free agents sign and how likely it is that a team will win a Stanley Cup. Doctors, professors, inventors and other high-income professionals are similarly attracted to lower-tax jurisdictions so they can take home more pay.<\/p>\n

This is a broader concern for Canada\u2019s economy. If the country is to be competitive and attract top talent in all sectors, tax rates for those at the top, and for everyone for that matter, must come down.<\/p>\n

High taxes have consequences. It\u2019s natural for people to want to keep more of what they earn. And folks with higher incomes are even more likely to want to take advantage of lower-tax jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

Canada has experienced a \u201cbrain drain\u201d as a result of high taxes. Far too often, one hears stories of doctors educated in Canada choosing to move south of the border to practice, both because they can earn more and also because they will be taxed less. If Canada wants to reverse this trend across all sectors, including in sports, marginal tax rates must be addressed.<\/p>\n

Some of this damaging public policy has been more recent. For example, former prime minister Justin Trudeau introduced a new tax bracket for those earning more than $200,000, which raised the top federal income tax rate from 29% to 33%. That was a significant increase that impacted doctors, athletes, professors, and other high-income professionals. And it also means that Canada\u2019s top marginal tax rate is higher than the top federal tax rate in the United States, a country in which many states don\u2019t have any state income tax at all.<\/p>\n

To start to reverse Canada\u2019s \u201cbrain drain\u201d and \u201cathlete drain,\u201d the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney ought to start by reversing the Trudeau government\u2019s introduction of the new top marginal income tax bracket. Taxing the rich may be politically popular, but it has damaging impacts on the broader economy and encourages those with the highest incomes, who already pay the most taxes, to move elsewhere.<\/p>\n

If Canada wants to attract and keep top talent \u2014 be it in sports, medicine or academia \u2014 the nation\u2019s taxation policies must be addressed. Until then, the odds of Canadian sports teams signing top talent and the odds of keeping new doctors in the country, for that matter, will continue to lag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"See more Toronto Sun on Google \u2014 save as a Preferred Source A Canadian-based National Hockey League team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,14832,3300,474,39336,39339,39334,74,1142,39338,39337,39335,1796,3211],"class_list":["post-114071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-canadian-teams","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-florida","tag-hockey-player","tag-jordan-staal","tag-marginal-tax-rate","tag-national-hockey-league","tag-stanley-cup","tag-tax-implications","tag-taxes","tag-top-talent","tag-vegas-golden-knights","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}