To Tax or Not to Tax?

David Miller is punishing those Toronto residents who aren't rich but aren't poor either. The rich won't feel paying $4000 more for a home as much as those people who are middle class, have a mortgage and take their kids to the library or a skating rink on the bus because it's inexpensive.

Thank you David Miller for trying to make this city inhabitable for young families. In 10 years when crime is up because there's no community programs and entire neighbourhoods have turned into multi-family rental slums we'll have Miller to blame.

Rick,
Property does not necessarily mean land with a home on it.
It could be a parcel of land with no structure on it. Hence the lower under $55,000 band.

I wonder how the vehicle registration tax would work with carshares, I suppose they'd probably get charged too and divide it up amongst their customers. Which would end up being a minor increase, but I'm just curious.

If taxes focus on the middle class, it's punishing average families, if they focus on the poorer then it's even worse and rather illogical, and if they focus on the rich then the rich people won't want to be here and will take the whole of their money elsewhere. Sounds like taxes, yep, always end up costing someone money.

This isn't Miller's fault... the City needing a financial audit aside (and I won't deny that), he's in the position of having a bill of needs that outweighs the budget he's got to work with.

He either cuts community services, which will raise crime and ruin neighbourhoods, or he increases taxes, which will raise crime and ruin neighbourhoods.

It's really past time the province gave us the money we ought to have, and the faith-based school funding "saga" mentioned in the article might more appropriately be called a charade... I don't like when politicians use focus group type tactics to sculpt a platform they don't indeed to support based on survey results, but I'd really much rather have seen the issues that actually matter to people be reflected in the previous election.

Where was the environment? Where was funding for our city? Where on earth did this faith-based funding nonsense even come from? How many people independently care about that to the extent that it would wind up the leading issue in the election? I found it insulting to have the issues that have been around water coolers and in editorial columns for so long be so blatantly neglected... of course, fighting climate change and funding a city like Toronto involve actual work and actual spending, and who wants to put their neck out like that?

I think this is Miller's fault. We've seen him waste money. I mean even if the City of Toronto does get $365 million from this tax, who's to guarantee Miller isn't going to use it to pay the wages of workers working in closed libraries?

Like the councillors who initially railed against the tax increase, Anna, you offer no real alternate solution to the tax increases.

You have to admit that if the City did such a gaff with the libraries, there must be more money falling through the cracks elsewhere too. I agree with David E, the City does need an audit. My question is, why is the first response to raise property taxes?

Anna, they aren't raising property taxes. There will be a new tax when a property is bought, and a tax when you register a motor vehicle.

Furthermore, I believe that there have been audits in the past and that the city is pretty lean. On Friday Miller announced that they will be doing another audit.

Regarding your first comment, you contradicted yourself by saying that you don't want taxes, but you do want community programs.

My point exactly, why do an audit after a tax vote? I resent the government telling me to pay more taxes, but not telling me that all services have been looked at and there are no duplications and no savings to be had. And how is a tax on a newly purchased property not a property tax? Sure, it's a tax that will be taken on by a small percentage of people each year purchasing property, but it's a tax on that property nonetheless. Why cloud an issue by picking on a small point? I mean isn't that for the politicans to do?

I wanted to add that I'll pay the vehicle registration tax. That's fine. Cars are a nuisance in this city, so I'll pay the penalty. My husband works in the suburbs and drives in.
I walk to work. We walk everywhere on weekends. We thought about buying a TTC pass and sharing it. But David Miller was upset because too many people bought those and the TTC lost money on them. So you know we're just trying to do our part to keep this city afloat.

I hope these new taxes are approved. The city needs the money.

As a comparison to other cities our size, one can looking a little south of the border:

While cities in the US have different tools to raise money than Canadian cities, they too are facing difficult decisions - Mayor Daley in Chicago just proposed a 15% property tax hike. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/us/18taxes.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

Isn't Toronto only looking at about a 3% property tax increase next year?

I'm not paying a mortgage and property taxes yet, but I think the land transfer tax would be preferable to large property tax increases that Chicago property owners face.

Miller is saying he hopes to keep the property taxes close to 3% next year, but it'll probably actually be 6%, and even then they'll be a shortfall. Even if this land transfer tax goes through, there will still be a shortfall. Then Miller will ask the province for more money, and the province will say no because the city signed the City of Toroto Act giving Toronto autonomy over services and the
ability to tax. The city will blame the province, the provine will blame the city. Something has to give. You can't just keep raising taxes without accountability. Otherwise the tax increases will never end.

Hey Anna, there are plenty of audits that have been done:

http://www.fairtaxes.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=70

Here's another interesting web page:

http://www.fairtaxes.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=70

Also here is some info about how underfunded our transit system is and how it is much more fiscally efficient than any other transit system in North America:

http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/pdf/other_transit_properties_chart1.pdf

http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/pdf/other_transit_properties_chart2.pdf

Most of the councillors who voted to defer the tax vote did so in the hopes that the extreme underfunding of Toronto by Ontario and Canada would become elections issue and that would pressure the provincial and federal governments to actually give their fair share of support to Toronto.

Well big surprise it didn't become an issue. Now either we continue the Toronto tradition of screaming for help with a begging bowl in hand at budget time or we can actually start standing on our own two feet and start becoming self reliant.

Anna, the provincial and federal governments are swimming in surpluses and all municipal governments are struggling to make ends meet on the sole revenue source of property taxes.

Most other municipalites have sucked it up and pay far higher property tax than we do in Toronto and they feel no sympathy for us as they have much lower service levels than us with our subways and free swimming pools and a library system that is the best in the entire world (2nd busiest after Hong Kong).

"2nd busiest" library system doesn't necessarily mean "best."
Busy libraries aren't really a good thing.

I don't mean to be facetious here, but how come the city hasn't been bankrupt in other years? The same provincial and federal laws have applied for at least the last four years. It's only since the City of Toronto Act was signed that the city realised it has no money?

Best in the world was me being completely subjective and biased :), I love our library system. 2nd busiest in the world is a fact and pretty damn amazing considering how low our population is compared to other cities. And after all the only way to see if a library system is being effective is to see if it's being used right?

In any case Toronto has been dipping into its reserve fund to pay to keep the city running every since amalgamation and downloading. It started under Mel Lastman. We've now run out of reserve funds. It's a pretty desperate situation.

I'm getting my information from here Rick:

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/205351

Miller has been dipping into the reserves far more than Lastman for sure. But the stuff that we're spending money on is stuff like more police and more transit service and that stuff is important. We're a lean machine of a city, but we're also a starved one.

I think the City of Toronto Act gives the province an out in not helping the city. They can sit back and say that Tornoto is on its own. I wish the province would step in a pay for transit in the city. I'm sure no other municipality in the GTA shuttles around as many people from other cities as Toronto does. A lot of people who work in Toronto also take the GO train home to the suburbs and pay their taxes there. I'm not saying Toronto doesn't need help from the province because it does (not even help but its fair share). But a city running out of a reserve fund and taxing people more to make it up is just crazy. They'll never be enough taxes.

Deferred til tomorrow? Pshhh...

Anna,

The province and the feds don't *need* an out in not helping the city. They can (and have) just refuse to do so. I'd rather not wait for help from outside the city.

Large cities raise funds from many sources outside of property tax and Toronto is hamstrung by not being able to do the same.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Taxing 5% of the population to remedy 70% of the budget shortfall is how you get reelected.

And it passed:

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/269208

Why doesn't the city just impose a 1% MST (municipal service tax) it would just replace the 1% drop in the GST. It would be practically painless.

A Toronto sales tax sounds like a good idea. Until people stop buying big ticket items (TVs, cars, jewelery) outside the city in order to save 1%.