Oshawa Taxpayers Federation General Meeting SAVE THE DATE!

Save the Date:

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.

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”.

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.

Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights

MPAC and the MVA system

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MVA?

The Ombudsman confirmed what was widely known by many taxpayers in Ontario, that MPAC was abusing their power as they administered the MVA system. Many individuals also knew of wide and inexplicable variations in the assessments from MPAC. It is also clear that MVA as applied by MPAC is variable, unpredictable, subjective, secretive and intrusive. It penalizes well-kept properties, and rewards slums. Statscan called it "regressive", penalizing seniors and others on low and fixed incomes, taxing an imaginary future profit of sale.

They are also less than honest when they claim that their assessments are based on market value. If that were the case, why does the sale value of a property not become the revised assessment? Instead, MPAC uses a complex "multiple regression analysis" program that they claim contains over 2 billion pieces of data, to produce their confusing and variable results.
The worst feature is that there is no connection between the real or imaginary value of a property and the need for or use of local services.

All of this background was the reason why the Citizens Tax Reform Group was formed to find a replacement for the MVA system. During the course of developing a solution and running a real-life Pilot Test, further problems within MVA were found as a by-product.

The Pilot has confirmed the well-known belief that waterfront properties are assessed higher than the rest, and has also quantified the high level of this excess. It also showed that this excess increased substantially from 2001 to 2005. A further problem, previously unsuspected, is that properties smaller than 2,000 square feet in area are assessed significantly higher on average than properties over 2,000 square feet, another discrepancy that increased from 2001 to 2005.
It is reported that MPAC costs $158 million a year, plus the cost of tribunals run by the Attorney General, without adding a single dollar to the economy of the province. These costs are paid by the property owners. The fifteen directors of MPAC are all appointed by the Finance Minister.



Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights

... You haven't seen anything yet - By Alan Slater

The Coming Catastrophe...
or... You Haven't Seen Anything Yet.

1. Harmonized Sales Tax.

The cost will increase for gasoline, heating fuels, electricity, and many other goods and services currently exempt from PST. We will be bribed with a one-time $1000. of our money. Would the Ontario government do this if it did not increase the tax revenue?

[ Everything that is manufactured, transported or heated will be included in this increase. What is not included in this list? ]

2. Smart Hydro meters.

Reports from early installations indicate electricity bills being doubled. You don't get cheap power at night; but you pay heavily to use power by day.

[ How are we supposed to do all of our living at night? Perhaps some can, but is that fair? ].

3. Cap-and- Trade energy plan.

Both Ontario and Canadian governments plan to impose this scheme on us. It is supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by industries. When it was applied in Europe, energy costs rose sharply, and the energy companies made great windfall profits. Electricity costs will go up, again, (see 1. and 2. above ), and the gases will only go down because of the recession, which will get worse because of the increased cost of almost everything.

[ The governments' line will be that it works if it is done properly. This from governments that have given us the gun registry and eHealth. See also any report by the Auditor General, and the work of the Ontario Ombudsman ].

THE COMBINED EFFECT OF ALL OF THESE RECKLESS TAX INCREASES, DURING A SERIOUS RECESSION, CAN ONLY HAVE A MASSIVE IMPACT ON QUALITY OF LIFE IN ONTARIO. IF ENOUGH PEOPLE RESIST, BY ATTACKING THEIR MPs AND MPPs, PERHAPS IT CAN BE PREVENTED.

Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights

Tax Facts by Oshawa Taxpayers Federation Board of Director Alan Slater

Total taxes in Canada amount to almost half of total income, comprising of income taxes, municipal taxes, consumer taxes, and a multitude of user fees, licenses, duties and excise taxes, and so on.

Where does it all come from, and go to? Is it uniformly distributed? Is there gross unfairness in parts of the system?

There is a wealth of data available, but how do you get a feel for the overall picture?

Here are some figures, from various sources, as a start towards a better understanding of where the worst inequities are. Some of the data appear to be old, but they date from times when the economy was more stable from year to year than it has been recently.

This is a work in progress, with updates, additions and improvements that will be done on a regular basis.

The Oshawa Taxpayers Federation encourages everyone to review the information, add to it as much as possible - through legitimate and confirmed sources, via e-mail to otf.inbox@gmail.com

Verified information, sources, comments, and suggestions are always welcome as the OTF is your Federation.

Municipal Revenues and Expenditures,
Canada. 2002 – 2007

Total revenues $86 billion, increasing to $109.6 billion + 27.0%

Total expenditures $85 billion, increasing to $112 billion + 31.4%

Total property taxes $34 billion, increasing to $43 billion + 26.0%

Inflation in the same period + 11.5%

Population increase in the same period + 5.4%

[from Canadian Taxpayers Federation, “A Property Tax Cap”, 2008]

Property Taxes vs Income – Canada

Property taxes = 2.9% of family income

Income taxes = 21.3% of family income

Family income less than $20,000;

Property tax = 10% of income
Income tax = 4% of income

Family income more than $100,000;

Property tax = 1.8% of income.
Income tax = 28.6% of income

[from Statscan ‘Daily’, July 24, 2003]

Low-income elderly; property tax = 11.7% of income
Non-elderly, non-low-income; property tax = 2.6% of income.

[from Statscan, ‘Property Taxes’, July, 2003]

Property Taxes by Province

Property tax = 2.9% of income, Canada average

Property tax = 3.2% of income, Ontario average

[from Statscan, ‘Property Taxes’ July, 2003]

Wages by Industry – Ontario – 2000 – 2004

Goods-producing; $18.83 to $20.59 = 9.3% increase
[including agriculture; $10.36 to $11.52 = 11.3% increase
utilities; $26.28 to $29.56 = 12.5% increase]

Service-producing, $17.11 to $19.00 = 11.0% increase

Public administration $22.65 to $26.74 = 18.0% increase

Total – all industries; 10.5% increase

[from Statscan, ‘Labour Force Survey’, 2005, in Can. Tax. Fed., Ont. Pre-Budget Submission, 2006/2007]

Oshawa Property Taxes – 2007 to 2009

2007 2008 2009 Increase
Total 242.8 million 255.2 million 262.7 million 8.2%

City+Region 189.3 201.5 209.3 10.5%

City only 92 98.8 103.4 12.4%

Administration 11 11.5 16.5 50%

[from Oshawa Property Tax Bill, Information Pamphlets, 2007, 2008,2009]

Property Taxes by Building Size

Properties less than 2,000 square feet were assessed 36% more than properties of 2,000 sq. ft. or more, in 2001 and 2005.

[from Citizen’s Tax Reform Group, Pilot Project, Fixed Value Assessment System, 2007]

The Oshawa Taxpayers Federation appreciates any updates, informational pamphlets, studies, reports, etc. that you may have so that we may share as much information to the public as possible.

Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights

Oshawa Taxpayers Federation's 2nd July 2009 General Meeting

The Oshawa Taxpayers Federation's most recent General Meeting was held at the Bobby Orr Lounge at the Oshawa Civic Centre on the 2nd July 2009.

The meeting opened communication between the OTF members and the OTF Board of Directors, with much brain-storming and opportunities to discuss numerous concerns about the goings-on in both the City of Oshawa and in Durham Region as a whole.

The OTF members were apprised with what the OTF Board has been busy with and presented with the issues that the OTF members may like to deal with, of which was voted on that evening.

Accountability and transparency were key issues that are expected of our Oshawa City Council, as well, many questions regarding the dubious spending that our local politicians do are forefront on the minds of our OTF members.

The Oshawa Taxpayers Federation Board of Directors are listening to the citizens of Oshawa. Please take the time to make comments, suggestions, or send a quick e-mail to our otf.inbox@gmail.com and let us know what's on your mind.

We are also looking for volunteers for the myriad of needs that our fledgling Federation has. If you are interested in helping out, in any manner and capacity, please drop us a line at otf.inbox@gmail.com


Save the Date:
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. The OTF Board of Directors will be presenting what they have achieved by that time.

Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights

Trent University, Oshawa Campus has been approved

Click on THIS LINK to read the article by Ms. Jillian Follert, Oshawa This Week, about the unanimous council vote to allow Trent University to build a campus on a portion of the former Civic Auditorium and St. Michael Catholic School.

We would appreciate hearing your thoughts and concerns about Council's vote.

Achieving Accountability for Oshawa Taxpayers' Rights