(even those which increase in value.)
UPDATE on WRAFT
By Shal Gewurtz
If you were inclined not to read an article with a boring title “UPDATE on WRAFT” but the subtitle above caught your eye, read on.
As I write this article, on Friday February 1st, a blizzard is raging outside which, of course, will be a distant memory by the time you read this in the RLCA Spring 08 Newsletter. But as I nurse my Glenfiddich single malt scotch whiskey and wiggle my toes in front of a warm fire, the image of biting snow mixed with freezing drizzle in a cold wind seems to be an apt metaphor for my topic, namely property tax assessments coming our way later in 2008, courtesy of our friendly Ontario Government and its strong-arm agency, MPAC, alias the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation.
You don’t like my imagery so far? Well let me try another one on you – I feel like a radar operator on the Titanic frantically trying to pass warnings about the impending collision with a massive iceberg most of which is invisibly submerged beneath dark silent cold foreboding depths. I don’t think radar existed in 1917, but who cares about historical accuracy – the main thing is, DO YOU
GET THE PICTURE?
Yes folks, massive increases in tax assessments for waterfront properties are definitely coming.
In the Fall 2007 RLCA Newsletter, my first article since I became the WRAFT contact on your behalf, I reviewed the mandates of WRAFT (stands for WATERFRONT RATEPAYERS AFTER FAIR TAXATION) to which the RLCA belongs, and its sister organization, CAPTR (stands for COALITION AFTER PROPERTY TAX REFORM). With last Fall’s provincial election underway, I passed to you WRAFT’s summary of where the 3 parties stood on the issue of property taxes assessments. I also summarized for you what several newspaper columnists wrote about this issue, and specifically their warnings that this issue was going to hit Ontario property owners hard once the freeze on assessments was lifted in 2008. But the only issue to emerge during the election campaign was faith-based schools, to the exclusion of anything else, and the Liberals were re-elected with a majority. Since the Fall RLCA Newsletter, I forwarded 2 WRAFT reports to all members on the RLCA email list.
Before I summarize these WRAFT reports for the benefit of RLCA members who do not have email or who have become members only recently, let me (a) summarize a recent article which provides a fascinating insight into the lunacy of the market value assessment system, and (b) provide my own commentary about the unfairness of this system.
In a January 15, 2008 article in the Globe and Mail, John Barber called the property tax assessment a “ticking assessment bomb now threatening to blow up so many settled Ontario homesteads - a policy nobody paid the slightest attention to six months ago, when it could have made a difference”. Mr. Barber states that “the message is not new. But people don’t listen to anything they’re not ready to hear. They weren’t ready last fall. Now they are ….especially, with tax bills landing in mail boxes”. Mr. Barber goes on to say that tax increases will not hit everybody, but “Ground zero, unquestionably, is cottage country, a sprawling landscape comprising dozens of tax jurisdictions marked by a sharply bifurcated property market - one for waterfront, another for everything else. The new assessments will inevitably show waterfront properties appreciating much faster than those inland, with the ultimate result being double-digit tax hikes for them and discounts for their landlocked neighbours. This will happen automatically, no matter what local councillors might do about property tax rates, as a matter of provincial policy.”
I bet many of you didn’t realize that not only will taxes go up for waterfront properties, but that taxes for village properties might actually go down. Mr. Barber explains how such a stupidity is about to happen and apparently it’s all in the law of averages. You see, there is a theory behind provincial tax policy which assumes that, “the assessment of every property in an individual municipality will vary at or near an average rate, with little or no effect on individual tax bills. Indeed that’s the law: When assessments increase a certain amount, provincial law requires municipalities to discount their tax rates accordingly. Thus the province ensures local government reaps no benefit from increased assessment.”
But this theory behind provincial tax policy breaks down in the real-world where there are uneven market value assessments in a jurisdiction. Mr. Barber calls these “lumpy tax jurisdictions, where average assessment jumps - and corresponding tax-rate discounts - are just disembodied numbers”. He says that the theory underlying provincial tax policy does not acknowledge the existence of such lumpy jurisdictions.
What does all this mean to you and me? Mr. Barber explains that, in the context of a city like Toronto, “Every percentage point a house increases in value over the citywide average since the last assessment becomes a percentage point increase in its tax bill - on top of whatever rate hike council might settle on. And every percentage point less than the average increase translates into a corresponding tax discount. Even though such houses also increase in value over years during which tax rates climb, their tax bills often drop.”
Translating this to the Haliburton area, and remembering that Mr. Barber calls cottage country “Ground Zero”, it means that the high increases in the market value of our waterfront properties, which we have always known will result in tax increases for us, will also have the effect of boosting the average for the whole of Haliburton county. Thus non-waterfront properties, whose values have also gone up but with increases that are below the county average, will pay less tax.
Mr Barber finishes his article by saying that “The McGuinty government spared its flock from such worrisome realities by postponing the scheduled reassessment till after its re-election - a cynical ploy that worked marvelously well. But there’s nothing holding it back now.”
On such an unhappy note, let me provide my own commentary on market value assessment. There is no question that the issues regarding property taxes are complicated. I have heard people say that our homes and cottages are worth more than what the government assessment usually comes in at, so why complain about the assessment system. Some people say that the real issue is the mill rate, and that regardless what the government says our homes and cottages are worth relative to what they are likely to bring on the real estate market, the municipalities will just adjust the mill rate to what they need. Others question what owning a house has to do with funding certain programs such as welfare, currently funded by municipalities, since property taxes are the only way for municipalities to raise revenue. All these questions are legitimate and I don’t pretend to have the answers. One only has to open any newspaper to read about deteriorating infrastructure and the impossible financial burdens of municipalities to appreciate that the tax system is broken and badly in need of an overhaul.
I think that, as responsible citizens, all of us are willing to bear the burden of paying for infrastructure and services provided the tax system is fair and equitable. But using market value as a basis for assessing property taxes is unfair because it leads to unfair tax burdens on individual homeowners. There have been numerous stories in newspapers about homeowners hit with tax increases of 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% or more. And it is even more unfair when you consider that basing property taxes on what the market might dictate is, in itself, unfair, because it uses a benchmark, namely what your property might fetch if you were to sell it, even though you haven’t sold it. It’s like charging you for the capital gain as your property has appreciated, even though you haven’t sold your property to earn that capital gain. It’s important to remember that market value for a property that has not been sold is unrealized gain, and therefore using market value assessment as a benchmark for determining property taxes is wrong. For example, a senior living in the same property for 20 years isn’t richer simply because the market around that senior has increased in value, yet the market value assessment charges that senior more in taxes because it deems him or her to be “richer”. Market value assessment leads to unfair tax increases, such as we see in the disparity between waterfront and village properties. In many cases, especially on seniors, it leads to huge tax increases that are impossible to bear. That’s why it is a lightening rod issue.
Now that I have thoroughly depressed you, let me summarize the 2 WRAFT reports which I forwarded to all members on the RLCA email list since the Fall RLCA Newsletter.
The November 2007 WRAFT Report referred to the Ontario election outcome as disappointing to say the least, from the point of view of property tax reform. It stated that even a minority government would have given us a good shot at getting an assessment cap in place. The WRAFT report cautioned that, with a Liberal majority and their belief that they have dealt with reform by the combination of the four year phase-in and seniors grant, it is going to be a challenge to make real progress in the year ahead. WRAFT stated the belief that the upcoming assessment, covering the three year period 2005 through 2007 will represent yet another opportunity to demonstrate the critical need for reform. Property owners will receive their 2008 assessments beginning next September. Given the strong real estate markets throughout many parts of Ontario over the past three years there is no question that there will again be a huge disparity in assessment hikes which will result in major tax increases for hundreds of thousands of property owners and massive shifts in tax load from one area to another.
The November 2007 WRAFT report also reported on fundraising efforts that have totaled more than $100,000, and on its efforts in 2006 and 2007, such as input to the Ombudsman’s report, as well as various discussions it had with Government officials. Plans for 2008 include an intention to continue to lobby for a cap on assessment increases. In WRAFT’s view, the government’s return to a four year assessment and phase-in cycle does not deal with the volatility which remains the major flaw in Ontario’s assessment-based property tax regime. WRAFT sees four periods over the next year and a half when there will be opportunities to raise the issue with the media, the government and the public:
- At present there is some media interest in property tax reform as one of the outstanding issues to be dealt with by the Liberal government.
- A report on municipal tax is due early in 2008 and will again highlight problems with the property tax regime and in particular the downloading of social service costs onto the property tax bill.
- Issuance of assessment notices next fall will raise serious concern once again about the current system’s volatility and the general concern with the assessment process.
- Receipt of tax bills in 2009 will drive the message home again.
In the January 2008 WRAFT Report , the following points were outlined:
- In its 2007 budget, the Liberal government tried to make tax burden more predictable in the short run. The 2008 increase, which reflects the rise in real estate values for the years 2005 through 2007, will be phased in over the next four years. Any resulting tax increases will accordingly be phased in over the years 2009 to 2012. Then we will get assessed again in 2012.
- Unfortunately this reform does not bring stability to the property tax system. Assessments will be carried out every four years and will still be subject to the vagaries of the real estate market; the inadequacy of sales transactions and lack of comparability in many areas; and the imprecision that is built into the assessment process. On top of that, less frequent assessment means that property owners in hot urban markets and in many waterfront areas will be clobbered when market highs coincide with the four year assessment cycle.
- 2008 assessments will come this Fall, and WRAFT plans to attempt to determine in advance the impact of that valuation in a few urban and waterfront areas. With that information, WRAFT will make every effort to convince the Ontario Government that further steps are essential to bring stability and long term predictability to the property tax regime. WRAFT continues to hear that municipalities need more funding to maintain infrastructure and tax increases are inevitable. In WRAFT’s view, Ontario homeowners cannot be expected to cover these cost increases and at the same time be exposed to assessment related tax shifts based purely on the vagaries of real estate markets.
Let me end, as I always do by inviting you to go to the WRAFT and CAPTR websites for more information and to continue to do so regularly for updates.
You might also be interested in visiting MPAC’s website.
