- The rate on your last dollar is not the rate on your salary — the ladder above shows both for Northwest Territories.
- Thresholds are set in Northwest Territories independently of every other region, so a raise crosses a bracket at a different income here.
- The basic personal amount shelters the first CA$18,198 of income in Northwest Territories before any provincial tax is charged.
- CPP or QPP and EI premiums are not income tax, but they come off the same paycheque — the take-home column includes them.
How tax brackets work in Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories taxes employment income on its own bracket schedule, and the federal government taxes the same income on a separate one. Both apply at once, so the rate on your last dollar is the sum of the two — the marginal rate column in the ladder above.
The table at the top of this page is the Northwest Territories layer alone. Its top rate is 14.05%, and it splits income into 4 bands. Each rate applies only to income inside its own band, so someone earning just above a threshold pays the higher rate on the excess and nothing more.
Before any of that, the basic personal amount shelters the first CA$18,198 of income through a non-refundable credit. The federal basic personal amount applies on top, so the income you can earn entirely tax-free is higher than either figure alone.
How these figures are calculated
The ladder above is computed by the same engine that powers the take-home calculators: federal tax on the federal schedule, Northwest Territories tax on the schedule above it, the basic personal amount applied as a credit at both levels, then CPP or QPP contributions and EI premiums up to their annual maximums.
The marginal rate is measured rather than looked up — the engine computes tax on the salary, then on the salary plus a small increment, and reports the difference as a rate. That catches the credit phase-outs and surtaxes that a bracket table alone would miss.
What is not included: provincial health premiums, union dues, pension contributions, and every credit beyond the basic personal amount. Those are household-specific and would make the figures less comparable between regions, not more accurate.
A worked example
On CA$75,000 of employment income in Northwest Territories, income tax comes to CA$13,440, leaving CA$56,190 after tax and payroll deductions. That is an average rate of 17.9% against a marginal rate of 29.1%.
The distance between those two numbers is the point of this page. The marginal rate is what a raise or a bonus is taxed at; the average rate is what the salary as a whole costs. Quoting the marginal rate as “my tax rate” overstates the bill by a wide margin at almost every income.
Key terms
- Marginal rate
- The combined federal and provincial rate on your next dollar of income. What a raise or a bonus is actually taxed at.
- Average rate
- Total income tax divided by gross salary. Always well below the marginal rate once more than one bracket is in play.
- Basic personal amount
- Income sheltered by a non-refundable credit. Northwest Territories and the federal government each set their own, and both apply.
- Payroll premiums
- CPP or QPP and EI, plus QPIP in Quebec. Capped annually, so they weigh far more on a modest salary than a large one.