Taxation and the middle class

[ijmorlan]

I don't blame municipalities for this. I'm fundamentally opposed to property taxes, but in the absence of any other consistent form of revenue, what can the cities do?

Indeed. It’s really up to the provincial and federal governments to fix this.

I would start by moving education entirely off of property taxes and just paying for it via the provincial budget. This of course implies an increase in the various provincial taxes.

Next I would increase the GST/HST and send the increase directly to the various municipalities. So maybe we increase the Ontario HST from 13% (5 federal + 8 provincial) to 15% (5 federal + 8 provincial + 2 municipal).

Finally eliminate the existing federal equalization payment system which is a continuing political nuisance and which nobody understands anyway and probably doesn’t make sense (“probably” only because I don’t understand it; but I’m pretty sure if I did understand it I would just believe more strongly it doesn’t make sense) and replace it with per capita block grants from the federal government to all the provinces, municipalities, and individuals; the last part also being referred to as a guaranteed or basic income.

I don’t know what a revenue neutral level of property tax would be after the above, but for sure it would be much reduced from where it is and much less of an issue.

But I think I just drove this discussion way off the road. Sorry everybody.