eligible property must be included in the residential property class and the assessed owner (or spouse) must be a low income senior or low income person with disabilities.
Section 357: Cancellation, Reduction or Refund of property taxes in the year following the year in respect of which the application is made to the City Treasurer. This section requires Council’s approval on an annual basis for tax relief to property owners as a result of occurrences such as building demolitions, destruction of property caused by fire, changes to property tax class and/or the inability to pay taxes because of sickness or extreme poverty.
Section 365: Cancellation, Reduction or Refund of property taxes which provides for tax relief on eligible properties where the taxes are considered to be unduly burdensome. Eligible properties are those that are within the residential, farm or managed forest classifications as determined by MPAC.
After a thorough review and public consultation process in 2010 Council approved the guidelines for the tax relief program under Section 357 (1) (d.1) of the Municipal Act to provide assistance to residential property owners who are unable to pay taxes because of sickness or extreme poverty (CR 356/2010). The guidelines were further refined in 2011 after the results of the first pilot year was reported on (EC 31/2011). Tax relief under Section 357 (1) (d.1) provides assistance to those identified as most in need based upon best practices and community consultation.
Discussion:
As stated above, a reduction or refund of property taxes can be provided for in the year following the year in respect of which the application is made to the City Treasurer. In other words, the applications being brought forward to Council are in regards to request for relief from 2019 property taxes. A total of twenty-two (22) applications were received.
Applications and supporting documentation are first thoroughly reviewed by Finance Administration in accordance with established criteria. Initial recommendations of fourteen (14) approvals and eight (8) denials are made based on results of the review and information submitted. Applicants were then notified of Finance Administration’s recommendation.
Those applicants which were recommended for denial are then afforded the opportunity to submit a request to the Property Tax Relief Internal Review Panel (PTRIRP), and internal review panel comprise of staff from the Social and Health Services Department, for a second review and independent recommendation. One appeal was forwarded to the PTRIRP, and the recommendation for denial was upheld.
Impact of Reassessment on the 2017 – 2020 Tax Relief program administration
As Council will recall, 2017 was the 1st year of the current four-year reassessment cycle and Administration advised Council in the previous year’s Tax Relief Report that assessment values were projected to increase by 12% (approximately 3% per year) over the four year cycle. As a result of same, Administration recommended increasing