08-30-2016, 10:05 PM
(08-28-2016, 04:16 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Taxes in general are levied against people who don't directly benefit from the services all the time, because we think it's something that benefits society as a whole. That's just how taxes work.
It is obviously a little more subtle than that, and I don't specifically have an issue with pro-rating township taxes for no transit service, but I don't find the "I don't directly benefit from this service" argument very compelling. I mean, everyone who lives in Canada pays federal taxes which support Via Rail but many Canadian's live in cities not serviced by Via Rail. Same in Ontario for GO Transit I believe.
Transit is a region responsibility because the cities uploaded it to the region. The townships get taxed by the region for the library but they don't the cities for it, even though they could access the service.