Tax mix, progressivity and fairness
The first integrated, multi-jurisdictional picture of how Canada's cumulative tax burden — federal, provincial, and municipal — is distributed, and where regressivity is embedded in the architecture.
SSHRC Partnership Development Grant
Evidence for a fairer Canadian tax system
Independent research on the tax mix, redistribution, and administrative equity — measuring who pays, and who benefits.
Explore the researchAbout the partnership
Canada has no shared infrastructure for evaluating tax fairness. FACT is building one.
Canada's tax and transfer system is complex, fragmented, and hard to see into. That opacity makes it difficult to answer basic questions — how the burden is distributed, what public spending actually returns, and who is shut out by the way benefits are administered. Perceptions of unfairness follow, and trust in a cornerstone democratic institution erodes.
The Fair and Accountable Canadian Taxation (FACT) Partnership brings together researchers at the University of Calgary, Carleton University, and the Université de Sherbrooke with two national organizations — Social Capital Partners and the Canadian Tax Observatory — to build a durable, open platform for analyzing tax fairness in Canada. An equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility lens runs across all three research themes, and the partnership trains the next generation of applied public-finance researchers.
FACT's research is academic-led and independent. Findings are published openly and mobilized in both official languages.
Research themes
Three questions, one system
Tax fairness cannot be assessed one instrument at a time. FACT examines how revenue is raised, what it returns, and how it is administered — as a single system.
Redistribution and public value
Systematic Canadian application of the Marginal Value of Public Funds framework, estimating the net social return to transfers, credits, and public spending rather than their cost alone.
Administrative equity and access
Who is excluded by how the system runs: barriers to filing, uneven audit and compliance burdens, and reforms — including automatic filing — that widen access to the benefits people are already owed.
Outputs
Published and forthcoming
Peer-reviewed research, plain-language companion pieces, and policy briefs. Outputs are listed here as they are released.
Beyond Cost and Yield: An MVPF-TAdmin Framework for Evaluating Tax Administration Reforms Through Public Value, Equity, and Welfare
Tax Filing as State Administrative Infrastructure: Governance Gaps in Canada's Tax-Based Benefit System
People
Academic team
Lindsay M. Tedds
Project Director · University of Calgary · Theme 1 lead
Jennifer Robson
Co-Director · Carleton University · Theme 3 lead
Antoine Genest-Grégoire
Co-Director · Université de Sherbrooke · Theme 2 lead
Gillian Petit
Research Manager · University of Calgary
FACT is governed by a Joint Governance Committee of the academic directors and the chief executives of its organizational partners, advised by an external group of policymakers, civil-society leaders, and international experts.
Partners
Built with practitioners, not just for them
Research design stays academic-led. Mobilization is co-developed — so findings are tested in real policy environments and reach the people who use them.
Social Capital Partners
A philanthropic policy intermediary advancing more inclusive economic systems. SCP co-leads policy dialogues and roundtables, and translates research into workable reform options across government, business, and philanthropy.
socialcapitalpartners.ca ↗The Canadian Tax Observatory
An independent non-profit devoted to helping people and policymakers understand the tax system, and part of a global network of tax observatories. The Observatory leads bilingual dissemination, data transparency, and international linkage.
canadiantaxobservatory.ca ↗Academic partners: University of Calgary (host institution) · Carleton University · Université de Sherbrooke
Funding acknowledgement
The Fair and Accountable Canadian Taxation (FACT) Partnership: The Fair Tax Initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Partnership Development Grant 890-2025-0173, 2026–2029). Additional cash and in-kind support is provided by Social Capital Partners, the Canadian Tax Observatory, and Carleton University.
Le partenariat Fair and Accountable Canadian Taxation (FACT) : The Fair Tax Initiative est en partie financé par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada (subvention de développement de partenariat 890-2025-0173, 2026-2029). Un appui financier et en nature additionnel est fourni par Social Capital Partners, l'Observatoire canadien de la fiscalité et l'Université Carleton.
Research published by FACT is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and is not a product of SSHRC. Views expressed are those of the researchers.
Les recherches publiées par FACT sont financées par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada et ne constituent pas un produit du CRSH. Les opinions exprimées sont celles des chercheuses et chercheurs.