T1-derived datasets from the Income Statistics Division of Statistics Canada (known as Annual Estimates for Census Families and Individuals, or simply Taxfiler data) are an important source of Canada-wide small-area income data.
Taxfiler data offers income-related information down to the CT and rural six-digit postal code level. This information is generated from individual tax files from the Canada Revenue Agency, and published on a yearly basis.
For more information on Taxfiler data, users can refer to the T1FF Technical Reference Guide.
1. What is Taxfiler data?
Taxfiler data is the colloquial term for a set of standardised data products generated from T1 tax files by Statistics Canada's Income Statistics Division (ISD). The formal term is "Annual Estimates for Census Families and Individuals".
Note that in previous years the data was generated by the Small Area and Administrative Data (SAAD) Division. You may come across this abbreviation when dealing with Taxfiler data from before 2010.
Taxfiler data includes four products that the Community Data Program has acquired for all of Canada. Each product consists of a group of tables related to that product.
- Family Data
- Neighbourhood Income and Demographics
- Seniors
- Financial and Charitable Donors
Financial and Charitable Donors is an umbrella term for eight products that relate to personal finances and charitable giving: Charitable Donations, Canadian Taxfilers, Canadian Capital Gains, Canadian Investment Income, Canadian Investors, Canadian Savers, RRSP Contribution Limits (Room), and RRSP Contributors.
2. Note on geographic scales
Detailed information on T1FF geography can be found here, on Statistics Canada's website.
Because Taxfiler data use Postal Codes as their basic geographic building block, they are available at two different kinds of scales: Postal geographic scales and Census geographic scales.
Postal geographic scales are based on (or aggregated from) six-digit Postal Codes. These include:
1 - Postal walk
2 - Other postal walk
3 - Urban forward sortation area (residential area)
4 - Rural route
5 - Suburban service
6 - Rural postal code (within city)
7 - Other urban area (non-residential within city)
8 - City total (a.k.a. postal city)
9 - Rural postal code (not in city)
10 - Other provincial total
11 - Province or territory total
12 - Canada
Census geographic scales on the other hand are more familiar to most of us. For Taxfiler data, we have:
21 - Census division
31 - Federal electoral district
41 - Census metropolitan area
42 - Census agglomeration
51 - Economic region
61 - Census tract
If you're interested in Taxfiler data for an area without Census tracts, we recommend using a combination of Geographies 8 ("City total", also known as "Postal City") and 9 ("Rural postal code (not in city)"). It's possible to uncover which six-digit Postal Codes fall within any given area coded 8 or 9 by merging the "Place name" variable in Taxfiler data with the "COMMNAME" variable in the Postal Code Conversion File. Contact us if you need help with this.
A small number of taxfiler tables have been custom ordered at the Census Subdivision level. Note that creating these tables required converting Postal geographies to Census geographies, which can be quite inaccurate for small Census Subdivisions. Please read the notes provided with these data tables if you plan on using Taxfiler tables at the Census Subdivision level.