Comment 28965

By JonC (registered) | Posted February 22, 2009 at 20:40:26

Meeting up would certainly be an idea.

But back to A Smith....

Once again addressing your opinion that "When you lower the cost of owning property (by decreasing tax rates), you increase the demand for property.... Both Burlington and Oakville charge lower "tax rates" on property and surprise, surprise, their property is in higher demand, as reflected in the higher market prices people are willing to pay."

Taxes are paid in dollars not percentages. And you pay less dollars in Hamilton than in Toronto or Oakville, so according to your logic, those cities citizens should be clamouring to move to Hamilton. If you would care to address that minor flaw in your argument as opposed to making random arguments about the GST or corporate tax rates or anything else, that would be great. Here are some useful numbers for your consideration. While the value of a dwelling isn't the same as the assessment value, using the 2006 census data for average value of dwelling (best I could do on short notice) and the 2008 tax rates.

        avg value in 2006 tax rate  avg prop tax

toronto centre $538712 0.87 $4686.79 oakville $496772 1.05 $5216.11 burlington $335846 1.11 $3727.89 hamilton centre $189078 1.65 $3110.33

Of course, Ancaster gets the screw as they come in at ancaster $351126 1.47 $5168.57

So, people can both buy property for significantly less and pay less tax on that property, yet people aren't living there. So maybe, just maybe, a factor other than tax rate has some bearing on people's property buying decisions.
Please address this or surrender the point.

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