[URBAN NOTE] "Raising property taxes is neither progressive, nor regressive"

[rfmcdonald]

Edward Keenan, as usual, makes sense in the Toronto Star in talking about the import of property taxes, and how they are--in Toronto--properly not understood as an issue of left or right.

On the subject of Toronto property tax rates, my own position has long been clear: I wrote last spring that the city should raise them five per cent in addition to the rate of inflation, and I still think that’s reasonable.

But it has been interesting to see, during the mayoralty of John Tory, how a willingness to raise property taxes is now being held out as a litmus test for progressivity.

This is an angle of argument ramping up once again as the Toronto budget committee gets down to its detailed work next week as the mayor and budget chief promise not to consider large property tax hikes.

A rash of critics of the mayor scoff loudly at his hundreds of millions of dollars in proposed new revenue — through road tolls; hotel taxes; ending vacancy rebates for commercial landlords; land transfer tax changes, and, even, a 0.5-per-cent-per-year property tax levy dedicated to infrastructure capital — because his refusal to significantly raise residential property taxes marks him as a regressive reactionary.

This is weird.