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Property Tax is undoubtedly the most controversial form of tax. Its ever increasing nature highly resembles rent where you pay a monthly fee for using a property.The main argument to justify the existence of property tax is to fund underlying cost of maintaining municipal infrastructure. such as hydro, electricity and roads even though we do pay for the cost of hydro and electricity. In a normal business practise a consumer pays for the product they use.Hydro is not any different than any other product. However in the world of municipal politics you would pay when you use and on top of that you would pay an ever increasing monthly fee to cover the cost of owning owning your property even though you have already purchased the property in full. Are we a communist society without knowing it?In a capitalist society ownership is the heart of the society. What would happen when ownership is no longer ownership and is what comes down to be a different form of rent? Are we a communist society without knowing it? In a communist country such as the fallen Soviet Union, the government controls the ownership. In our city on the other hand if you own a property and can not afford to pay the property tax you will be forced out of the property you purchased. So does it really mean you own your property?The affect of property tax on the lives of seniors living on a fixed income and often can not afford to pay for the property tax is no news to anyone. We all heard of seniors who had to sell their property and move from their homes because they no longer could afford their property tax. A system that hits its seniors at their most vulnerable time in life is not sustainable. A city that runs on tax money is no longer sustainable. As jobs increasingly move overseas to low cost locations such as China and India the real source of income for people is drying out. The city approves new taxes left and right and centre to fund a badly managed city. And the burden of the cost falls on the shoulders of the most vulnerable tax payers. A city must run like an enterprise looking for ways to generate profit for the city in order to fund projects. City can enter the business of commercial properties in order to generate profit. Projects like office building with mess amount of property that city has at its disposal is a natural approach to a long running sustainable profitability. However the city administration which is increasingly becoming like a conservative government in its lack of transparency does not seem to recognize that the time of relying on tax money is over. Statistics released by stats-can have consistently shown that middle class is shrinking as the rich get richer and those in the middle are pushed further down closer to the poverty line. Since the the middle class income can no longer cover the cost of living in a big city it pushes the middle class deeper into debt. Increased property prices causes the property tax to increase in an unhealthy move pushing the middle class even more into debt. The affect of property tax on the economy has not been explored by economists. Unhealthy increases in the price of property way beyond the purchasing power of those who have purchased properties in recent years and unreasonable property tax increases have squeezed the pockets of average citizens to the levels not seen in recent decades. Running a city has become a series of meetings by city councillors with that always predictable outcome, increasing property tax and approving new tax measures. City needs a shake up and capable business managers to generate profit from that vast resources available to the city. The current policies have no other outcome but pushing the middle class out of the city and bankrupting the city when the resources are finally and unavoidably dried out.
Mayer's office is becoming more and more like a conservative stronghold with its lack of transparency and accumulation of power
in one person: the Mayor, resembling a form of dictatorship.
A good and viable alternative to property tax is to reflect the cost of maintaining infrastructure in the usage. Increasing the cost of hydro or electricity to reflect the cost like a normal business practise. This has the advantage of being environmentally friendly as the consumer bearing the actual cost of electricity and will be encouraged to save. However the main advantage is that it will not force people out of their homes because they can not afford to pay the property tax due to job loss or a temporary hardship in their lives. With system resembling rent and an authority over and above ownership, one should ask the question: Are we a communist country with the illusion of capitalism?
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