Toronto´s new Mayor Olivia Chow and Toronto City Manager Paul Johnson have sent their instructions to the Toronto Legislative Assembly Council to approve a whole set of new taxes and fees, as well as to raise some current taxes significantly. All these new taxes, fees, and tax raises will go into effect on January 1st, 2024.
The most outstanding of these will be,
Additional commercial parking levy
Higher ancillary parking fees over today´s $5 dollar-an-hour cap
Additional new land transfer tax on foreign buyers
Land transfer tax increase for houses worth 3 million dollars and above
New monthly levy on phone users to cover 911 calls
New municipal sales tax for products and services being sold and bought in Toronto
New personal vehicle tax
Graduated hike in land transfer tax for luxury homes
While home sales up to $2 million are currently being taxed with a two percent municipal land transfer tax, whereas all home sales over $2 million are still being taxed with 2.5 percent.
From now on, however, homes sold for over $3 million will be subject to a 3.5 percent municipal land transfer tax, which will go up gradually to a maximum of 7.5 percent for homes being sold for over $20 million.
They also want to raise the Vacant Home Tax rate from one to three percent,
They have also already asked the province to allow Toronto to implement a Municipal Sales Tax that would apply to the purchase of all goods and services in Toronto.
While the aforementioned authorities acknowledge that these changes will significantly increase the cost of living for Torontonians, they have sought to impress upon everybody that there was just no choice, because the city is in very deep financial trouble, so much so that even with all these changes they will only be able to fix the situation by between thirty to forty percent. Therefore, they will also try their best to get some major funding allowances from both the provincial and federal governments, because such funding is almost non-existent, yet most other major cities in the world do get such funding from their respective governments and that is how they manage to stay afloat financially. Toronto appears to be a regrettably outstanding case in the world in that it almost has to fund itself mainly from property taxes, while it brings incommensurable benefits both to Ontario and Canada as a whole, without any corresponding investment from them to keep this metropolis running smoothly. It is therefore high time the federal and provincial governments stop free-loading at Toronto´s expense.
We are very sorry to inform you that, unfortunately, they have not budged an inch, so far, from their traditionally cavalier and noncommittal attitudes toward Toronto.
Therefore, unless a breakthrough in negotiations is achieved soon, the city government will have to do away with very important planned transit projects and also with 978 formerly planned new long-term care beds.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Legislative Assembly has given low-income Torontonians a truly good break by passing Toronto By-law 170, which has given substantial tax exemptions to a significantly larger amount of low-income Torontonians. Although it had been passed since February, its benefits are today coming into their own for a very large number of Torontonians who had hitherto not been able to enjoy such tax exemptions and breaks.
Details follow,
