Who pays, who receives — household incidence from StatCan distributional accounts
2026-07-18 · wave 3 · ESTIMATE lane · answers Floyd's constraint: "the goal shouldn't be that the vast majority pay out more — let the data guide us."
Basis note (w18): figures below are on the wave-3 gross basis. After the w17 property-tax netting, scale magnitudes by ≈0.91 — signs and orderings are unchanged. Canonical current figures:
NUMBERS.md.
Headline
Combining StatCan's National Balance Sheet (who holds land, by sector) with StatCan's Distributions of Household Economic Accounts (who holds real estate, by household group), under the national per-resident design at r = 5.5%:
- Four of five wealth quintiles are net recipients on average. Only the highest wealth quintile pays (≈ −$12,900/yr for the average top-quintile household).
- The average household receives ≈ +$10,200/yr. The average owner household still receives (≈ +$4,100/yr); the average renter household receives ≈ +$23,600/yr.
- Crossover: an average-size household starts paying only above ≈ $456,000 of land value — roughly $866,000 of real estate at the economy-wide land share.
- The household sector as a whole nets +$176B/yr, because 28% of Canada's land ($1.45T corporate + $0.36T government) and the $1.37T of resource wealth carry no allowance — entities pay full freight into the pool.
The data
Sector split of land (NBSA Table 36-10-0580-01, Q1 2026, market value):
households $4.669T · corporations $1.450T · governments $0.356T · total $6.493T. Resource wealth excl. land: $1.369T. Settlement pool base: $7.862T.
Real estate by household group (DHEA Table 36-10-0660-01, Q4 2025, Canada):
| Group | Real estate per household | Implied land per household (52.7% share) | Net/yr (avg-size household) |
|---|---|---|---|
| All households (17.24M implied) | $514k | $271k | +$10,200 |
| Lowest wealth quintile | $59k | $31k | +$23,400 |
| Second quintile | $170k | $90k | +$20,100 |
| Third quintile | $391k | $206k | +$13,700 |
| Fourth quintile | $640k | $337k | +$6,500 |
| Highest quintile | $1,310k | $690k | −$12,900 |
| Renter households | $50k | $26k | +$23,600 |
| Owner households | $725k | $382k | +$4,100 |
| One-person households (1 share) | $283k | $149k | +$2,200 |
Workings: equal share $189,574/person (pool $7.862T ÷ 41.47M residents); average household size 2.41 (41.47M ÷ 17.24M implied households, N derived from DHEA value ÷ value-per-household); average household allowance $456k; land per group = real estate per group × 52.7% (the economy-wide NBSA-land ÷ DHEA-real-estate ratio).
Assumptions, stated
- Land distributed proportional to real estate within households. Conservative for progressivity: land fractions are highest in expensive metros, whose owners skew wealthy — the true top-quintile land holding is likely above 52.7% of its real estate, making the true result more progressive than this table.
- Within-group heterogeneity is real. Averages hide the politically loud cases: an average-size household in a $1.2M Vancouver home with a 70% land share holds ≈ $840k of land and pays ≈ $21k/yr despite possibly-median income. The regional incidence cut (BC Assessment land/improvement splits) remains the open task.
- Resource-stock annuitization (5.5% × $1.37T ≈ $75B/yr) is an approximation; actual annual resource rents are the better number (queued).
- Corporate charges land on shareholders, including pensions — concentrated at the top of the wealth distribution, which adds progressivity; the evidence that landlords cannot shift land charges onto tenants is documented on the wiki: https://www.progress.org/wiki/landlords-cannot-pass-lvt-to-tenants/
- Government-held land ($0.36T) paying into the pool is a design choice (it effectively transfers from general revenue to the dividend); excluding it shrinks the pool ≈ 4.5%.
What this settles and what it doesn't
Floyd's constraint is met by the data under the national per-resident design: the vast majority of households receive; payment concentrates in the top wealth quintile plus entity-held land. Not yet settled: the regional cut (metro homeowners), the per-adult vs per-resident choice (one-person households receive only +$2.2k — the "who counts" question has real stakes), and the price-reflexivity dynamics.
Sources
- Statistics Canada, Table 36-10-0580-01 (NBSA, Q1 2026) — sector holdings of land.
- Statistics Canada, Table 36-10-0660-01 (DHEA, Q4 2025) — real estate value and value-per-household by wealth quintile, tenure, and household size; full CSV via WDS, retrieved 2026-07-18.
- Statistics Canada, quarterly population estimate (41.47M, 2026-01-01).
- Wiki evidence pages: land-value-tax-can-be-progressive; landlords-cannot-pass-lvt-to-tenants.