Won't somebody think of the rich? ⇒
3 August 2007, early afternoon
Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby is working hard to make sure people buying $800,000 homes don't have it too rough.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
Get out the f**king kleenex.
by radmila on August 3 2007, 3:29 pm #
this is completely unnecessary, if toronto councillors raise their property taxes according to market value! Toronto has one of the lowest property tax rate in the entire GTA — no wonder they are always in the red.
by tiff on August 3 2007, 7:14 pm #
I think there are better things to tax than property values. Miller is always complaining about how the taxes we get don’t match how our economy is doing, so he should probably try and tax something that ties into that better.
by ramanan on August 4 2007, 1:34 am #
That said, the arguments against the property tax shouldn’t be that it will make buying $800,000 dollar homes a little rougher.
by ramanan on August 4 2007, 9:57 am #
but land transfer tax will only alienate Toronto from the rest of the GTA. Note that no other cities has the right to raise land transfer taxes besides Toronto. So if you have councillors who are so against adding an extra taxes, why not stop the artificial hold on raising property tax value (that means raising it more than 3% a year) and allow the rate to match the level of services that are required to service these homes. Municipalities have two main revenue tools — property tax and development charges. they should review these tools before they create more taxes to prevent unwanted consequences.
Of course everyone likes more stable sources of income — the US shares their sales and income taxes with municipalities! In lieu of that, however, property taxes are probably the most stable source of income for municipalities. A freeze on property tax also hurts TIF districts…but that’s another issue.
by tiff on August 4 2007, 6:09 pm #
A lot of old folks living at Yonge and Eglington have to sell their homes because they can’t afford the taxes on them anymore. So raising the rates even faster than they have been going up is probably not ideal.
by ramanan on August 7 2007, 9:34 am #