Search Results for: Property Tax

Aversion to taxes presents a major policy dilemma for elected governments: voters want governments to deliver goods and services but are deeply suspicious of their efforts to raise taxes.
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Throughout much of the 20th century, water was seen as plentiful and water rates did not promote conservation. Today, water is treated as a relatively scarce resource and governments are concerned about financing new and rehabilitated infrastructure. However, most municipalities still do not set prices for water at levels that would encourage conservation, thereby allowing the overconsumption of water, and leading to increased demand for expensive infrastructure.
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As the size and scope of responsibilities for cities expands, do local governments have the appropriate financial and governance arrangements to effectively and efficiently deliver services to residents?
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Local fiscal autonomy is the extent to which local governments rely on locally raised revenues for funding and their ability to set their own tax rates. A comparison of Toronto, London (UK), Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid, Tokyo, and New York reveals that Toronto is less dependent on intergovernmental transfers than many other major cities but, with the exception of London, it has fewer tax options.
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The Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG) at the University of Toronto and the Institute without Boundaries (IwB) at George Brown College have worked together on a data visualization pilot project that brings municipal finance data to life. Leveraging the municipal finance expertise of IMFG and the design experience of the IwB and School of Design at George Brown College, this collaborative project is intended to highlight key issues in Ontario’s municipal finance and illuminate them in compelling and accessible ways.
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This paper argues that additional taxes are entirely appropriate for major cities and estimates the potential revenue that some of these taxes could generate in eight Canadian cities – Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, and Halifax.
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This presentation was delivered by Dr. Enid Slack to the Caribbean Valuation and Construction Conference in St. Lucia.
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Toronto is known for having been a prosperous and successful city in the decades after the Second World War, and the postwar period has come to be seen as something of a Golden Age for the city. What role did Toronto’s postwar municipal finances play in making the city the success that it was?
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