This Guide is a summary of the results of a Fraser Institute project that began in July, 1975. The objective of the project was to find out how much tax, in all forms, Canadians pay to Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments and how the size of this tax bill has changed from 1961 to the present. The study analyzes Canada's tax system in each of three years, 1961, 1969 and 1972.

The Guide has been written with two distinct purposes in mind. First, to provide a non-technical do-it-yourself manual so that the average Canadian family can calculate how much tax it really pays. Secondly, to give circulation to a new statistic that we call the Canadian Consumer Tax Index.