I recently viewed "THE CULLEN MINATURES" I was appalled, they were broken, pieces missing, the electrical components were strewn in milk cartons.They are being stored in a run down warehouse in an Oshawa Works Yard. This is deplorable, read the whole story in The Oshawa Express. The story is written by Lindsey Cole with pictures, graphic, I might add,by Katie Strachan. I would not want to venture a guess as to what it would cost to restore them to their original magnificence.Now is the time to speak out, this is our City, let's take it back!!!!!
Viv Woolford, President
OTF.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
ARE "THE CULLEN MINATURES" Worthless??
Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights Please send this out to as many of your friends as possible, we must get answers, call City Hall, The Mayor, Councillors and all involved. It's your money that's being wasted. This is only one debacle of Oshawa, there are many others that will soon be exposed. Join with the OTF and make a difference, it's no point complaining if you're not going to act, let's act NOW!!!!
Viv Woolford, President.
OTF.
Viv Woolford, President.
OTF.
Friday, September 4, 2009
General Meeting
This article from the Toronto Sun is brought to you by the Oshawa Taxpayers Federation for your information.
Our next General Meeting will be held on
16th September 2009
from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 pm
at the Bobby Orr Lounge
from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 pm
at the Bobby Orr Lounge
The date is fast approaching and we are looking forward to sharing our progress and meeting the new members that are able to attend. Please spread the word and encourage your neighbours and friends to come and join our cause.
Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights
Saturday, August 22, 2009
OSHAWA IS A WINNER AT WHAT IT DOES BEST by Alan Slater
We in Oshawa should be aware that all is not doom and gloom. Oshawa has a great record in some important areas. Take taxes as an example.
Our residential tax rate takes the Gold at 1.76%, more than double Toronto's pathetic 0.85%, and well clear of the 1.19%average.
This stellar performance is topped by the Golden apartment rate of 3.06%, three times the anemic 1.01% of Markham, struggling at the bottom.
Oshawa falters a bit with the commercial rate, which only gets the Silver at 3.57%; Toronto has the Gold with 3.85%. There is hope, however. Toronto is shifting tax slowly from the commercial sector, to try to drag their residential rate from the dumpster, so that eventually Oshawa will be able to claim the Gold here also.
The industrial rate Gold goes to Oshawa with 5.34%, more than double the loser, Markham, with 2.59%. This is less important than it used to be.
So, with a clean sweep in sight, what is next? Oshawa's year over year tax increases used to be winners, with 9.8% in 2004, but they have sunk to a mere 4.61% in 2008. If Oshawa council can hunker down and give 110%, perhaps we can help Ontario to overtake Quebec in the race to charge the highest proportion of family pre-tax income to property taxes. Quebec claims 3.4%, to Ontario's 3.2%. Solid performances when compared to Nfld/Lab's 1.4%, and the national average of 2.9%.
We should honour Oshawa councillors for this sterling performance, and encourage them to strive for greater things yet. Is there a Nobel prize for Reckless Incompetence?
Perhaps not, but what we can do is to reward them by re-electing them next year, encouraging them to continue the good work.
Achieving accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Oshawa Taxpayers Federation General Meeting SAVE THE DATE!
Save the Date:
Our next General Meeting will be
The OTF Board of Directors will be presenting what they have achieved by that time.
Our next General Meeting will be
on the 16th September 2009 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
at the Bobby Orr Lounge, Oshawa Civic Centre
99 Thorton Road South.
at the Bobby Orr Lounge, Oshawa Civic Centre
99 Thorton Road South.
The OTF Board of Directors will be presenting what they have achieved by that time.
Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights
Oshawa Taxpayers Federation Ed Goertzen, VP Organization
Ed Goertzen, OTF VP Organization, has been a student of a variety of disciplines in his academic life. Since being bitten by the political bug in the mid 50’s, he has been a provincial and municipal candidate.
He will be married 54 years this fall, and with his spouse, they have raised 5 children in Oshawa since 1973, while working as manager for the Toronto Star.
Ed has a passion for Democracy “the way it should be practiced”, and believes that the ‘Demos’, the people, are the only one of the five “estates”, powers, that are not organized.
“The first goal of obtaining good laws should be consensus and none partisanship, (by consent of the people) , the adversarial system should be confined to the courts”.
He will be married 54 years this fall, and with his spouse, they have raised 5 children in Oshawa since 1973, while working as manager for the Toronto Star.
Ed has a passion for Democracy “the way it should be practiced”, and believes that the ‘Demos’, the people, are the only one of the five “estates”, powers, that are not organized.
“The first goal of obtaining good laws should be consensus and none partisanship, (by consent of the people) , the adversarial system should be confined to the courts”.
Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights
Fixed Value Assessment - by Alan Slater
FIXED VALUE ASSESSMENT
The Citizens’ Tax Reform Group developed a system, Fixed Value Assessment, (FVA), to replace the dysfunctional Market Value Assessment method, (MVA), used and abused by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, (MPAC).
The fundamental requirements for FVA are that it must be fixed for the life of a property, predictable, and technically and politically feasible.
The FVA definition selected makes use of available data in the MPAC base, the "Building Area". This is fixed, and recognizes the public belief that larger houses should pay more, although the owners may not use more local services. We appreciate that this decision is not completely logical, but it is a practical compromise. FVA is based on MPAC data for 2001. hi that year, MVA had been in use for several years, and we assumed it had reached some measure of stability.
Anecdotal evidence suggested that MPAC assessments after 2001 continued to cause concern among the public, so 2005 data were also used in the Pilot Study for purposes of comparison. Our results indeed show that MPAC inequalities have grown worse between 2001 and 2005. The selection of 2001 as a base for FVA calculations is therefore a logical choice in a context where logic has been largely missing.
Lot size is not included in FVA, because it has no bearing on the use of local services. The same is true about out buildings, road frontage, location (eg; waterfront), subjective elements such as quality of construction, condition, and all of the other complications manufactured by MPAC to make work for themselves.
FVA could be base directly on building area, without further work. However, this would be unfamiliar to local authority staff, so the average value per square foot (from 2001 MPAC data) in each municipality is calculated, and combined with the building area (also from MPAC data), to provide a seamless transition for local municipal staff.
FVA will modify, but only once, the distribution of tax within a municipality, because of the vagaries of MVA and MPAC. Some assessments will go down, and some will go up. No-one will object to a decrease, but a "grandfather clause" is proposed in FVA, whereby a property will be protected from a large increase by assigning the lower of the FVA and MPAC assessments, until the property is sold. The beneficial effect of this modification is shown by the Pilot Study results.
MVA (or Current Value Assessment as it was then known) was introduced by the Harris government to make local taxes "fair and equal". It was not explained how this would be
achieved. How can the rich parts of Toronto be equated with any northern town, or indeed anywhere else in Ontario? In fact, the mil rate in Toronto is a small fraction of the rates in smaller communities with far fewer amenities than Toronto. So, each municipality must continue to function independently.
FVA may not be the final answer to the local tax issue. There is a groundswell of opinion, that the Province should reassume responsibility for large infrastructure and social services, with revenue generated from progressive income and consumer taxes. Local taxes should be small and used for local purposes. Another tax proposal considered here, but not used, is to base assessment on the "footprint", the area of ground occupied by the building regardless of height or other details. This would act as a deterrent to "suburban sprawl", would encourage efficient high-density construction and infrastructure, and is compatible with the current political interest in preserving green space and agricultural land.
The Citizens’ Tax Reform Group developed a system, Fixed Value Assessment, (FVA), to replace the dysfunctional Market Value Assessment method, (MVA), used and abused by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, (MPAC).
The fundamental requirements for FVA are that it must be fixed for the life of a property, predictable, and technically and politically feasible.
The FVA definition selected makes use of available data in the MPAC base, the "Building Area". This is fixed, and recognizes the public belief that larger houses should pay more, although the owners may not use more local services. We appreciate that this decision is not completely logical, but it is a practical compromise. FVA is based on MPAC data for 2001. hi that year, MVA had been in use for several years, and we assumed it had reached some measure of stability.
Anecdotal evidence suggested that MPAC assessments after 2001 continued to cause concern among the public, so 2005 data were also used in the Pilot Study for purposes of comparison. Our results indeed show that MPAC inequalities have grown worse between 2001 and 2005. The selection of 2001 as a base for FVA calculations is therefore a logical choice in a context where logic has been largely missing.
Lot size is not included in FVA, because it has no bearing on the use of local services. The same is true about out buildings, road frontage, location (eg; waterfront), subjective elements such as quality of construction, condition, and all of the other complications manufactured by MPAC to make work for themselves.
FVA could be base directly on building area, without further work. However, this would be unfamiliar to local authority staff, so the average value per square foot (from 2001 MPAC data) in each municipality is calculated, and combined with the building area (also from MPAC data), to provide a seamless transition for local municipal staff.
FVA will modify, but only once, the distribution of tax within a municipality, because of the vagaries of MVA and MPAC. Some assessments will go down, and some will go up. No-one will object to a decrease, but a "grandfather clause" is proposed in FVA, whereby a property will be protected from a large increase by assigning the lower of the FVA and MPAC assessments, until the property is sold. The beneficial effect of this modification is shown by the Pilot Study results.
MVA (or Current Value Assessment as it was then known) was introduced by the Harris government to make local taxes "fair and equal". It was not explained how this would be
achieved. How can the rich parts of Toronto be equated with any northern town, or indeed anywhere else in Ontario? In fact, the mil rate in Toronto is a small fraction of the rates in smaller communities with far fewer amenities than Toronto. So, each municipality must continue to function independently.
FVA may not be the final answer to the local tax issue. There is a groundswell of opinion, that the Province should reassume responsibility for large infrastructure and social services, with revenue generated from progressive income and consumer taxes. Local taxes should be small and used for local purposes. Another tax proposal considered here, but not used, is to base assessment on the "footprint", the area of ground occupied by the building regardless of height or other details. This would act as a deterrent to "suburban sprawl", would encourage efficient high-density construction and infrastructure, and is compatible with the current political interest in preserving green space and agricultural land.
Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights
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