muller877
Senior Member
I agree in principle - but in the spirit of equity, the city should drop their commercial rate to a level comparable to the 905 municipalities as well.
AoD
100% agree. That's the only way that the non-downtown clusters will start growing again. If you look at the employment growth charts for Toronto there has been no growth for the past 10+ years outside of the downtown core (other than the Board of Education forgetting to count 25,000 employees and then finally counting them in 2016).
Why would I go to Etobicoke if I could build near the Airport and pay significantly less property tax? Thank goodness the province has mandated this slow transition to equitable commercial rates.
And for residential rates Toronto real estate prices are on average 25%-30% higher than the rest of the GTA. So when looking at Mill Rates Toronto's should be that much lower.
The other inequity in our tax rates is the large portion of old apartment buildings that pay commercial rates (after all companies don't pass costs onto consumers!!!). So the lower residential rate is partially funded by overcharging a portion of renters. Over time this inequity is being eliminated which will increase residential tax rate.
There are a lot of apartment buildings in Scarborough which have over time paid this unjust tax and they deserve some transit. I just wish someone would actually produce an unbiased report on the options. Every single report I've seen has a clear bias towards one option.