Is Rob Ford doing a good job?

[oldjones]

I'll thank them when they thank the North of Bloor taxpayers for paying at a significantly higher tax rate.

You've got some 'splainin' to do to make that point. Don't you mean they should be thanked for paying the same low tax rate as the forced snow shovelers but living in houses assessed for far more? While the snow-shovelers' taxes go to plow out the over-sized driveways of The Former City With a Heart, and the Ford Ward?

Here's a concept: same tax-rate, same service. Can't figure out how to plow some sidewalks in some neighbourhoods, then don't plow any. Or give the citizens you conscript to do the City's shovelling a break on their taxes.

Looking forward to you showing me they already do, and how that demonstrates Ford's Etobicokian constituents whose driveway clearing he protected are actually paying full cost of their special—but oh so necessary—city service.

Time we made our Mayor face the fact that administering a city competently and fairly is a lot more difficult than managing a gravy-boat. And stop hogging all the gravy for his end of the table.

 

[Blue-Spheroid]

A house in (for example) North York pays more in municipal taxes than a house in (for example) little Italy which has the same actual market value.

Tax amounts are calculated based on an assessed value of the home which is not related to the actual market value if it were to be sold today. Downtown houses tend to be assessed lower than houses of similar value in the suburbs. Therefore, a suburban homeowner pays more tax than a downtowner living in a home of the same actual value.

Look it up.

 

[james t kirk]

A house in (for example) North York pays more in municipal taxes than a house in (for example) little Italy which has the same actual market value.

Tax amounts are calculated based on an assessed value of the home which is not related to the actual market value if it were to be sold today. Downtown houses tend to be assessed lower than houses of similar value in the suburbs. Therefore, a suburban homeowner pays more tax than a downtowner living in a home of the same actual value.

Look it up.

I've never heard of that. Everything was MVA I thought. The mil rate is the same across the city.

The assessment is set based on a cross section of the prices of the homes that sold in the area - so I don't know how downtown properties can possibly be assessed lower.

 

[Blue-Spheroid]

so I don't know how downtown properties can possibly be assessed lower.

Do you own a home? If you do, check what your MVA is on your tax bill and compare it to what you know your house is really worth. You'll find that the two values are quite different. Typically, The MVA for suburban homes runs closer to (but still less than) the true market value of the home; downtown homes' MVAs tend to be even less than true market value.

But really, look it up.

 

[avxl1003]

Do you own a home? If you do, check what your MVA is on your tax bill and compare it to what you know your house is really worth. You'll find that the two values are quite different. Typically, The MVA for suburban homes runs closer to (but still less than) the true market value of the home; downtown homes' MVAs tend to be even less than true market value.

But really, look it up.

I have a shitty little home in the High Park neighborhood that I paid a little over $400,000 for about 2 years ago. It was valued at $550,000.00

Trust me when I say that there is NO WAY anybody is paying $550,000 for my shit hole.

 

[fuji]

My home in downtown is also MVA's at more than it's worth, so I call Blue-Spheroid's claim bullshit.

 

[james t kirk]

I live in High Park as well and when they first came out with MVA, they assessed my house at 20 grand more than I bought it for. (It was 99 or 2000 or so, but I bought my place in 96 and the initial assessments were based on the 96 prices.)

I fought the assessment claiming that I purchased my house on the open market and it was an arm's length transaction and therefore I wanted my assessment reduced.

I won.

 

[fuji]

I live in High Park as well and when they first came out with MVA, they assessed my house at 20 grand more than I bought it for. (It was 99 or 2000 or so, but I bought my place in 96 and the initial assessments were based on the 96 prices.)

I fought the assessment claiming that I purchased my house on the open market and it was an arm's length transaction and therefore I wanted my assessment reduced.

I won.

I did the same thing. They reduced it. Then when the next assessment came out they jacked it right back up again.

 

[Blue-Spheroid]

Trust me when I say that there is NO WAY anybody is paying $550,000 for my shit hole.

I guess you'll need to drop the price if you want to offer greek.

 

[blackrock13]

I guess you'll need to drop the price if you want to offer greek.

I suspect it just the starting point for a dutch auction.

 

[james t kirk]

I did the same thing. They reduced it. Then when the next assessment came out they jacked it right back up again.

Har har, same thing happened to me, but I saved a bit in the short term

 

[avxl1003]

I guess you'll need to drop the price if you want to offer greek.

Most excellent quip... I'm impressed.

 

[oldjones]

Do you own a home? If you do, check what your MVA is on your tax bill and compare it to what you know your house is really worth. You'll find that the two values are quite different. Typically, The MVA for suburban homes runs closer to (but still less than) the true market value of the home; downtown homes' MVAs tend to be even less than true market value.

But really, look it up.

You're quite right that Mr. Harris's MVA is as screwy as the system he invented it to replace. But you are entirely wrong asserting there are different tax rates in the city. Saying owners of different houses pay different amounts is like saying a brother and a sister are different ses. So what?

Getting back to the topic: Either: You're asserting that the more taxes you pay, the more services you deserve—like Conrad Black deserves to personally select his jury and judge, but the homeless guy the cops beat up and charged with obstructing police doesn't deserve a trial at all. Or: I missed whatever point you were making back up the way in Post 212, which seemed to support playing favourites with your own constituents over other taxpayers. Not my idea of 'doing a good job'.

Do clarify.

 

[Blue-Spheroid]

You suggested that residents south of Bloor/Danforth were subsidizing snow removal in the suburbs that they don't receive themselves.

I responded that suburban residents, on average, pay more tax based on ACTUAL market value of their homes than those in the downtown core because the MVA for downtown houses is lower than the actual value by more than it is in the 'burbs. In this sense, the suburban residents are taxed more heavily than the downtowners and, therefor, are subsidizing some of their services. You then didn't understand this simple concept and I explained it again. I think that catches us up to the present.

I don't think it's fair to point at one service or another and claim that one area is better served than another. The cost of such things as clearing snow, delivering water, paving streets, and maintaining sewage, vary between areas based on the age of the infrastructure, the layout of the neighbourhood, and a whole lot of other factors. It does not cost the same to provide storm sewage for a downtown home as it does to a suburban home and yet we don't expect tax rates to adjust for this fact. Downtown residents get a way better deal from the TTC than suburban residents do (for example, way more access to a subway) and yet you didn't ask them to than the suburbs for paying just as much toward transit that they can't really benefit from.

 

[fuji]

the MVA for downtown houses is lower than the actual value by more than it is in the 'burbs.

You've provided no evidence for this, and the anecdotal evidence on this thread (my experience and James') contradicts you. In my experience downtown homes have MVA's higher than their market value.

 

[fuji]

I don't think it's fair to point at one service or another and claim that one area is better served than another.

The whole city should be identically served. You're tryign to give reasons like "costs vary between areas based on the age of the infrastructure, the layout of the neighbourhood", but that is not the reason why services vary. Services vary for the very simple reason that they were grandfathered in as what they were when the city was amalgamated. North York still gets what North York got. East York still gets what East York got. And so on.

It's been many years since then. Time to agree on one unified service level for the entire city. It could mean a reduction in service for some, and a rise in service for others. What would make most sense--given the budget problems--would be to cut every service city wide to the minimum service level provided anywhere, across the board. The logic of that would be that if people in one part of the city have been doing without it, then it's really not an essential service. Then once the budget is balanced we can talk about increasing above that minimum level and providing more luxurious services, city wide, if we have the cash.

 

[oldjones]

You suggested that residents south of Bloor/Danforth were subsidizing snow removal in the suburbs that they don't receive themselves.

I responded that suburban residents, on average, pay more tax based on ACTUAL market value of their homes than those in the downtown core because the MVA for downtown houses is lower than the actual value by more than it is in the 'burbs. In this sense, the suburban residents are taxed more heavily than the downtowners and, therefor, are subsidizing some of their services. You then didn't understand this simple concept and I explained it again. I think that catches us up to the present.

I don't think it's fair to point at one service or another and claim that one area is better served than another. The cost of such things as clearing snow, delivering water, paving streets, and maintaining sewage, vary between areas based on the age of the infrastructure, the layout of the neighbourhood, and a whole lot of other factors. It does not cost the same to provide storm sewage for a downtown home as it does to a suburban home and yet we don't expect tax rates to adjust for this fact. Downtown residents get a way better deal from the TTC than suburban residents do (for example, way more access to a subway) and yet you didn't ask them to than the suburbs for paying just as much toward transit that they can't really benefit from.

So are you saying the more tax you pay, the more services you should get or not? That is the point: What citizens get for taxes paid.

Cutting through your thicket of the distortions of an imperfect property tax system, and the unfairness of the extra costs of putting sewers where lots of people live already compared to where land is cheap, it seems to come down to 'folks in burbs pay more (an assertion as yet unproven), so they should get extra services, while folks downtown in cannot possibly cover the costs even of lesser services, so it's entirely alright to extract forced-labour from them instead'.

Here's what I'm saying: If we're not talking some sort of extraordinary hardship or emergency, in our sort of democracy what the government provides to one it provides to all equally. A high ideal, often imperfectly achieved, but the alternative is official favouritism and legislated privilege. Like plowing out driveways in Etobicoke, a forcing homeowners south of Danforth to shovel the sidewalks.

 

[Muddy]

Ford is a liar, a braggart, a bully, a fool, and he will drag this wonderful city into the toilet. Send the fucker back to Etobicoke and make him fix potholes. That's all he — and the idiots who voted for him — are good for.

 

[5hummer]

Ford likes to spend time in a Tim Horton's drive-thru (guess he's embarrassed taking the TTC):

http://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/kqg5y/i_got_stuck_behind_this_guy_at_the_tim_hortons/

 

[Blue-Spheroid]

So are you saying the more tax you pay, the more services you should get or not?

I never once said that. I merely said that we are not taxed evenly in the city and that were are also not served evenly.