Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Critics of the controversial, three-year-old proposal and there are many say allowing spouses with children under 18 to share up to $50,000 of their income for tax purposes does little for low-income families and encourages one of the parents to stay out of the workforce. , according to Hamilton Spectator. Some 40 per cent of the benefits would go to families earning more than $125,000, for whom the change could be worth $6,400 a year, the institute calculates. That would likely include Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who makes $320,400 a year and has two teenage children. When the Conservative brain trust sits down to hash out a crowd-pleasing alternative to income splitting, hoping to undo the damage from backing off a key 2011 campaign promise, experts say there will be plenty of options on the table. The C.D. Howe Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives alike say roughly 85 per cent of households would gain nothing from the proposal, particularly single parents. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.