Paleo
Active Member
What would be an example of a well-run city?
I think you are missing the bigger picture. Higher property taxes are not good news for renters.
As you know, property taxes are collected on rental buildings. Renters don't pay property taxes directly, but they do pay.
The Post? Whatever. Frankly, it's likely to disappear before the end of the end of the year anyways, because of the prudent private sector running it, a development I welcome.
I think you are missing the bigger picture. Higher property taxes are not good news for renters.
As you know, property taxes are collected on rental buildings. Renters don't pay property taxes directly, but they do pay. Although a new property tax class has been created for newly constructed purpose-built rental buildings, existing rentals are taxed at a commercial rate, far in excess of Toronto's residential rate. So, even though your rent is guideline protected, you may have (depending on the type of your rental accommodation) started off paying an initial rent that was higher than it needed to be because of the onerous tax burden in this city on rental buildings. Even if you didn't, many tenants do.
Existing tenants might not get hit immediately from property tax increases, but in the era of vacancy-decontrol tenant legislation, higher taxes prompt higher rents for vacant units, so new tenants or moving tenants get hit. Over a period of time, it helps accelerate the march towards higher average rents across the city.
So, while I'm glad that your rent is less than 1.8% increase this year, I don't think renters as a class have much to laugh about. Property tax treatment is a key problem vis-a-vis rental affordability in this city.
For that reason... im still allowed to laugh!
I see. So you want others to pay the tax increase so that you can get the services from the city.
If the city actually imposed a rental tax that would replace the taxes renters are paying indirectly, there would be a riot. Yet, the city has done this to homeowners through a new garbage fee (which is not even revenue neutral) and all the critics are blasted for being nutty.
I don't get this. When we hear the yearly story about 4% tax hike, or whatever, does that mean the rate is increasing by 4% or something else? If it is the actual property tax rate that is being modified, then inflation is a non-issue. The entire point of tax rates, as opposed to a poll tax, is so that taxation is a constant function of some underlying metric of society's ability to pay. In municipal terms, I guess that means land values. Tax rates aren't meant to be adjusted for inflation. Tax rates implicitly take inflation into account by being a function of some kind of inflation sensitive wealth.
Mississuaga taxes are going up 4.5%.... time to dump that socialist mayor.
Mississuaga taxes are going up 4.5%.... time to dump that socialist mayor.