THUNDER BAY – Apartment dwellers in Thunder Bay say they’re paying nearly 2.5 times as much property taxes as single-family homeowners do – and they want to know why.
Julia Wojciechowski says it’s unfair for the city to charge property owners of buildings with six or more units a higher mill rate, with the added taxes being passed on to tenants – often seniors or low-income earners – in higher rents.
A former condo owner, Wojciechowski said it doesn’t make sense.
“It’s mystifying. It’s sheer discrimination against the tenants,” she said on Thursday, following a meeting of the recently formed Thunder Bay Coalition Against Tax Discrimination.
According to figures available on the city’s website, residential ratepayers are charged a mill rate of 0.01684145, while multi-residential owners are charged a mill rate of 0.03924319, 2.3 times as much as those falling under the residential rules.
The Ontario average is twice as much, though a number of communities have reverted to a 1:1 ratio, including Vancouver, Red Deer, Alta. and Calgary.
Wojciechowski said Thunder Bay should consider doing the same.
“We found out that as of 1998 the city knew about this, so it’s a long time coming,” she said.
Fellow renter Linda Williams, a Current River resident, said she’s not upset, but does want the city to make good on an inequitable tax situation in Thunder Bay.
“I was flabbergasted that we were paying two-and-a-half times what the average homeowner was paying,” Williams said.
“We don’t get to really see that reflected in our rent. A lot of people didn’t realize that rent includes property tax. If we can get together and approach the municipality and ask why this discrepancy is here, then it’ll be a bonus for us as tenants.”
Landlords, under Ontario law, must pass on property tax decreases of 2.5 per cent or more to their tenants by dropping their rents accordingly.
Susan Cepanec, the landlord representative with the coalition, said renters are an easy target.
“Even the provincial government has recognized that this is not fair,” she said. “I can speculate and say the reason that cities may have adopted this decades ago was because it’s a lot easier to overtax somebody who doesn’t see a tax bill than to overtax somebody who does.
“But that would be speculation.”
After about 70 people showed up to Thursday’s public meeting, and with hundreds more signing a petition opposing the tax policy, Cepanec said she’s hopeful the city will listen.
“I think the city, once they understand that maybe this isn’t good policy, that by taking this taking this type of policy they’re not doing the city any favours. You obviously want to encourage density. Urban sprawl is a problem,” Cepanec said.
“If you’re taxing multi-residential at a different rate and making it less attractive, you’re not encouraging multi-residential.”
City director of revenue Rob Colquhoun said the province undertook major property-tax reform measures in 1998, adding at the time the multi-unit rate was 2.9 times the residential rate.
"Since then council has worked on reducing the ratio to where it is today at 2.5. Reducing a tax ratio applicable to any property class will result in a tax increase on other classes of property, mostly on the residential class," Colquhoun said in a statement issued by the city.
"Compounding the complexity of making changes has been the assessment decreases in the industrial and commercial classes which also transfers the tax burden off of those properties. Again mostly onto residential properties. It's a difficult balancing act that takes time."
