text: Blatchford is very much a cut-and-paste journalist. The annual financial report states: “[p]ersonal income tax revenues increased by $9.2 billion, or 6.7 per cent, reflecting gains in personal income and tax planning by high-income individuals to recognize income in the 2015 tax year before the new 33 per cent tax rate came into effect in 2016.” He dutifully reports this leaving out only the $9.2B difference. The implication is that if the Conservatives had been re-elected there would have been a much larger deficit. Of course, this is what a Liberal government would say. However, it is hard to believe. The April 2015 budget, which of course assumed no new tax bracket in 2016, also forecast an increase in PIT revenues in 2015-16, in fact, it forecast that it would be $9.2 billion.