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Surrealplaces said:
With all of this extra density building happening in inner city neighborhoods, I'd like to see the city look at doing property taxes differently. Instead of simply using straight up market value, maybe a hybrid of market value + square footage of the property. People shouldn't be penalized because their inner-city homes have higher values per square foot.
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I agree, it’s not fair that inner city people with higher home values should have to pay more when they’re doing a favor to the city by helping control sprawl.
 
Always_Biking said:
I don’t see anything even mildly progressive with the current market value system.
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The progressive part is that people with higher home values pay more tax. It's not perfect - among its flaws is that it provides an incentive for keeping empty lots empty, and yes, it is blind to the actual costs to service a property. But it is progressive in the sense that more wealth -> pay more tax.

A model that only took the costs to service a property into account would be regressive, even if it's more "fair" in completely different sense.
 
Always_Biking said:
It wouldn’t shift to a regressive side if we are taxing based on street frontage, etc, only shifting to a more fair tax.
I don’t see anything even mildly progressive with the current market value system.
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Owning a property of a certain value is highly correlated with income and/or wealth levels. Accidental millionaires are still millionaires. In the USA moving towards more property taxes and away from sales taxes at the municipal level has been found to be progressive.

Property taxes just aren't as progressive as most income tax implementations.
 
I agree on the definitions of progressive, but I don’t see why we need that for property tax. I don’t believe it should be based on the value of your land, but rather on your income, that way, the wealthy really are paying, not necessarily someone who bought a house in a neighborhood that’s been gentrified, and now their taxes are going up.
We already have that (wealthy pay more based on income ) for provincial and federal tax.
 
darwink said:
I think that would shift property taxes onto the regressive side of tax spectrum, from their currently mildly progressive position.

That being said, I think certain services could be shifted to a different form of taxation, like snow clearing, some fire and police coverage, shifting towards a frontage tax—where there is a logical connection between frontage and service costs.
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I like the idea of splitting up the costs to better reflect actual impact of each property. Frontage tax (pay more if you have more street frontage) pays for things that scale with it like roads and linear infrastructure, while keeping a smaller property tax for the rest that isn't really correlated.

That would reward higher density, with the quirky side benefit to incentivize tax-dodging developments to create weird buildings with the least frontage possible :)
 
CBBarnett said:
That would reward higher density, with the quirky side benefit to incentivize tax-dodging developments to create weird buildings with the least frontage possible
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There would need to be a relief valve for corner lots and reverse pies, but I think that is totally possible (would have to reread the act, haven't done so in almost 2 years now).

The great benefit is the power to implement this tax already exists.
 
Property taxes should be a flat rate. Criteria to consider would be number of rooms and housing unit type. I'm not entirely sold on putting the acreage in this mix or square footage of the residence. The number of rooms would provide scale. and multi-family options could be discounted
 
Always_Biking said:
It wouldn’t shift to a regressive side if we are taxing based on street frontage, etc, only shifting to a more fair tax.
I don’t see anything even mildly progressive with the current market value system.
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BRB, subdividing my property.

siteplan.png
 
CalgaryTiger said:
Could there be a percentage split on frontage and postal code property value? That way you get the best of both, in a way it is a tax based on the whole of city services. If you have higher property value that can be correlated to being closer to services that matter.
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Yes.
maestro said:
Property taxes should be a flat rate. Criteria to consider would be number of rooms and housing unit type. I'm not entirely sold on putting the acreage in this mix or square footage of the residence. The number of rooms would provide scale. and multi-family options could be discounted
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Flat rate is also allowed. 'each parcel of land'. Land area is also allowed.

In general, number of rooms and units is accounted for in the structure value of the market value assessment, and zoning entitlements are accounted for in the land value of the market value assessment.
 
I'm fine with a progressive tax even at a local even though as noted we already do this with provincial and federal tax. In essence the wealthy help subsidize local services like Calgary Transit, used to help those with less income, or shared use like parks and walkways etc..
However as I mentioned in my previous post, I'd like to see a hybrid tax model that also rewards development that helps fight sprawl. I think a hybrid of market value rate, combined with a frontage based rate is a reasonable way to go. No tax method, will be perfect, but this helps reward those living in smaller inner city units, while keeping the progressive system.
 
Could it make sense to also include proximity to city centre as another input in the frontage tax? I can see pros/cons to it, but I think its another factor to smooth things out. Frontage/lot size alone don't necessarily scale to the roads/utilities in curvilinear neighbourhoods.
 
lemongrab said:
Could it make sense to also include proximity to city centre as another input in the frontage tax? I can see pros/cons to it, but I think its another factor to smooth things out. Frontage/lot size alone don't necessarily scale to the roads/utilities in curvilinear neighbourhoods.
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Would need provincial permission to do so.
 
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