Tax News Archive

Recent news and information can also be found on the  FOCA Hot Topics - Taxation web page. 

Get to know your provincial politicians
In late 2009, Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak  appointed Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP Norm Miller  as the opposition lead on the Finance portfolio.  As Finance Critic, Mr. Miller is an important conduit for our ongoing work towards property tax reform. You can find the full list of PC caucus portfolios here. Follow these links to see the list of the current Liberal cabinet, and to find Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan.

We encourage you to contact Mr. Duncan and provide your feedback on the CVA property tax system, and the inappropriate level of local taxation for broad public services:

Dwight Duncan
Minister of Finance
7 Queen's Park Crescent, 7th floor
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 1Y7
dduncan.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Telephone: 416-325-0400 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

You can find out who your local MPP is, listed by riding, via the Ontario Legislative assembly website. Maps of all 107 electoral districts in Ontario is available from the Elections Ontario website.  Take the opportunity to let your local representative know what your concerns are.

Province taking back responsibility for $4B in services, AMO told
Hamilton Spectator - TheSpec.com

OTTAWA — Ontario municipalities can expect the provincial government to take on more of the services downloaded to cities and towns in the 1990s.

At the August 2009 AMO conference, Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson said by 2018 the province will take back almost $4 billion worth of programs that now fall onto the residential property tax bill.

Some of the services the province will assume responsibility for in coming years include the delivery of social services, affordable housing and child care.

“It should never have been on the property tax bill,” Watson told the meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario today.

By the end of this year the province says it will have uploaded $2.3 billion in services previously downloaded to Ontario municipalities by the Conservative government in the late 1990s.

To date the province has taken back 75 per cent of the cost of administering public health, half of the cost of delivering land ambulance service, 100 per cent of Ontario’s drug plan and 100 per cent of administering the Ontario Disability Support Program.

Ottawa Coun. Peter Hume - who is president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario - said he would liked to have seen the programs uploaded all at once but that just isn’t possible.

“AMO struck a deal with the province that is affordable for both levels of government,” said Hume.

NOTES FROM FOCA/WRAFT:  The uploading of broad public services from the municipal tax burden is essential to lessening the problems associated with the current volatile and unpredictable property tax process in Ontario.  The 10-year time horizon for uploading  is unnecessarily lengthy and puts the burden of much of this process onto as many as 3 future provincial administrations -  a recipe for derailing the process before the end is achieved.