Those people paying 46% tax are also the ones getting a disproportionate share of the income pool. The top 10% of income earners in Canada get a little less than half of all of the income generated, and so it is not unreasonable that the governments get about half of their income taxes from these earners. In terms of fairness, we people at the top still come out way ahead since the income pool is so much larger than the tax pool. I would rather pay a higher marginal tax rate on my high salary than have the redistribution done by everyone's salary being equalized. Having spent much of my working life on both ends of the income spectrum, I can say unequivocally that life is much better on the high end than on the low end, even with the "high" tax rates.