Are Be
October 26th, 2005, 06:28 PM
Caps for all a solution to tax mess
By JOHN BARBER
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 Page A14
* E-mail John Barber
* Read Bio
* Latest Columns
How is it that politicians can bawl ceaselessly for months every new year before deciding on a barely noticeable tax hike of a few per cent in April, yet sit by without a peep of protest or debate while whole neighbourhoods experience automatic tax increases up to 10 times greater as a result of ballooning, bubble-economy assessments?
This mystery survives in spite of the recent populist outcry against the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation and its nefarious ways. My theory as to why, is that afflicted ratepayers are hopelessly confused by a horrendous system designed in no small part for the express purpose of confusing them.
The MPAC uproar is a sideshow that proves the point. Too many of those aggrieved share the erroneous belief that their taxes would never go up if only MPAC got property values right. Yet what they really need is the exact opposite of accurate assessments. They need assessment caps -- simple devices that less confused ratepayers in several major U.S. states and Nova Scotia have successfully demanded in order to forestall tax shifts identical to those now gouging Toronto and its cottage-country hinterland.
In fact, you needn't go nearly that far to find caps in action. Mere weeks after it unveiled its first provincewide reassessment, the Mike Harris government annulled most of it by agreeing to cap commercial taxes. The reason was to forestall tax shifts that would have crushed many small businesses if the accurate new assessments were actually implemented.
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Small-business owners screamed loud and were heard. Yet small-homeowners who suffer every year from the same tax shifts the merchants most feared (before they were rescued by caps) remain dazed and confused.
MPAC is a huge problem -- the judge and jury of its own secret system, the details of which are conveniently unavailable to the public because, being a commercial outfit that theoretically might reassess Slovenia some day, it is exempt from disclosure laws that govern plain public bodies.
The very name of this provincial organization, intended to disguise it as something to do with City Hall, speaks directly to its fundamental design as a black box of non-accountability. Now it is functioning as a convenient lightning rod for complaints that should be directed to the heart of local and provincial politics.
So far in Ontario, owners of waterfront property in cottage country -- victims of the same assessment-driven tax hikes -- seem to be the only organized ratepayers who have figured out what they really want and how to get it. What they need to succeed is an equally focused urban auxiliary.
"That," commented one expert who has charted the secret history of successful property-tax revolts, "would be quite a combustible mix."
The same expert assures that assessment caps emerge only as a result of popular pressure. They work politically because the cost of capping flyaway assessments is borne evenly and broadly across the entire class -- imperceptibly to most ratepayers. And they are revenue-neutral, acting neither to deplete or top up the civic treasury.
One technique that Ontario experts used to prevent residential ratepayers from recognizing the value of caps, once they were forced to offer caps to commercial ratepayers, was to make the commercial caps they did offer as unpalatable as possible. Thus the demon "clawback," which meticulously isolates winners and losers and sets them against one another, divide-and-conquer style, while driving municipal treasurers crazy.
No such thing is necessary to the simple program of the tax revolt currently seeking an effective leader. What we need are straightforward assessment caps of the sort now found in California, Florida, Michigan, Nova Scotia and other places that have managed to see through the market-value fog.
Caps for all! It's as simple as that.
...
* © Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Tear down the Gardiner! Those who are forced to live in Brampton because they cannot afford an OK 3 - 4 bedroom house downtown should move downtown regardless of the fact they do not have the financial capacity to do so!
LET'S FORCE PEOPLE TO MOVE DOWNTOWN! LET'S CALL THOSE WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO LIVE DOWNTOWN THE 'SELFISH WEALTHY!'! THEN, LET' S SIT AROUND, STUNNED, THAT DEMAND FOR HOUSING DOWNTOWN HAS GONE UP! WOW! MARKET VALUES ARE HUGE!!!
Gee? Looks like downtown is for singles, DINKS, empty nesters, and the uber wealthy. Got 3 kids? Not uber wealthy? Well, living downtown is not going to happen.
By JOHN BARBER
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 Page A14
* E-mail John Barber
* Read Bio
* Latest Columns
How is it that politicians can bawl ceaselessly for months every new year before deciding on a barely noticeable tax hike of a few per cent in April, yet sit by without a peep of protest or debate while whole neighbourhoods experience automatic tax increases up to 10 times greater as a result of ballooning, bubble-economy assessments?
This mystery survives in spite of the recent populist outcry against the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation and its nefarious ways. My theory as to why, is that afflicted ratepayers are hopelessly confused by a horrendous system designed in no small part for the express purpose of confusing them.
The MPAC uproar is a sideshow that proves the point. Too many of those aggrieved share the erroneous belief that their taxes would never go up if only MPAC got property values right. Yet what they really need is the exact opposite of accurate assessments. They need assessment caps -- simple devices that less confused ratepayers in several major U.S. states and Nova Scotia have successfully demanded in order to forestall tax shifts identical to those now gouging Toronto and its cottage-country hinterland.
In fact, you needn't go nearly that far to find caps in action. Mere weeks after it unveiled its first provincewide reassessment, the Mike Harris government annulled most of it by agreeing to cap commercial taxes. The reason was to forestall tax shifts that would have crushed many small businesses if the accurate new assessments were actually implemented.
Advertisements
Small-business owners screamed loud and were heard. Yet small-homeowners who suffer every year from the same tax shifts the merchants most feared (before they were rescued by caps) remain dazed and confused.
MPAC is a huge problem -- the judge and jury of its own secret system, the details of which are conveniently unavailable to the public because, being a commercial outfit that theoretically might reassess Slovenia some day, it is exempt from disclosure laws that govern plain public bodies.
The very name of this provincial organization, intended to disguise it as something to do with City Hall, speaks directly to its fundamental design as a black box of non-accountability. Now it is functioning as a convenient lightning rod for complaints that should be directed to the heart of local and provincial politics.
So far in Ontario, owners of waterfront property in cottage country -- victims of the same assessment-driven tax hikes -- seem to be the only organized ratepayers who have figured out what they really want and how to get it. What they need to succeed is an equally focused urban auxiliary.
"That," commented one expert who has charted the secret history of successful property-tax revolts, "would be quite a combustible mix."
The same expert assures that assessment caps emerge only as a result of popular pressure. They work politically because the cost of capping flyaway assessments is borne evenly and broadly across the entire class -- imperceptibly to most ratepayers. And they are revenue-neutral, acting neither to deplete or top up the civic treasury.
One technique that Ontario experts used to prevent residential ratepayers from recognizing the value of caps, once they were forced to offer caps to commercial ratepayers, was to make the commercial caps they did offer as unpalatable as possible. Thus the demon "clawback," which meticulously isolates winners and losers and sets them against one another, divide-and-conquer style, while driving municipal treasurers crazy.
No such thing is necessary to the simple program of the tax revolt currently seeking an effective leader. What we need are straightforward assessment caps of the sort now found in California, Florida, Michigan, Nova Scotia and other places that have managed to see through the market-value fog.
Caps for all! It's as simple as that.
...
* © Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Tear down the Gardiner! Those who are forced to live in Brampton because they cannot afford an OK 3 - 4 bedroom house downtown should move downtown regardless of the fact they do not have the financial capacity to do so!
LET'S FORCE PEOPLE TO MOVE DOWNTOWN! LET'S CALL THOSE WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO LIVE DOWNTOWN THE 'SELFISH WEALTHY!'! THEN, LET' S SIT AROUND, STUNNED, THAT DEMAND FOR HOUSING DOWNTOWN HAS GONE UP! WOW! MARKET VALUES ARE HUGE!!!
Gee? Looks like downtown is for singles, DINKS, empty nesters, and the uber wealthy. Got 3 kids? Not uber wealthy? Well, living downtown is not going to happen.