Dear Editor,
The method used to calculate property taxes needs to change.
The property tax regime may have worked when everyone lived in similar housing, but the current tax system lumps all forms of dwellings into one big category, thus creating inequities. There is a case to be made for different mill rates based on dwelling type and value, plus a property component.
Consider this: all households use roughly the same amount of municipal services. These include expenditures on roads, sidewalks, parks, swimming pools, community centres and other costs of running a city. Similarly, everyone benefits equally from the education and transportation/road systems.
Most of these expenditures are covered by our property taxes. Since we all benefit, it is reasonable that each household should pay an equitable portion.
In 2016, there were 30,865 condos in Richmond and 42,590 dwellings that were not condos. Of the non-condos, 24,315 were single detached houses, and 1,650 duplexes. Condos represent 42 per cent of Richmond dwellings; single detached houses plus duplexes represent 35.3 per cent of dwellings.
The homeowner grant threshold in 2017 is $1.6 million, reduced by $5 per $1,000 of assessed value over the threshold.
Condos, without a property component, naturally fall on the lower end of the assessment scale while properties with land are on the upper end. As a result, many high-end condos can claim the homeowners’ and seniors’ grants while modest homes on city lots are denied the grants. As an example, a $1.6 million condo is eligible for both grants. However, older homes typically assessed between $30,000 and $80,000 are considered luxury dwellings as soon as their lot-plus-house assessments are over $1.6 million.
These high property assessments exist only because lot values have soared to international levels in recent years and our various levels of government have not taken steps to protect local, long-time homeowners.
One solution is to split the tax system so that dwellings without property are taxed with a separate mill rate from dwellings with property, and that dwelling-only assessments are included in the calculations. This could make the taxation system much more equitable in that each dwelling could pay a fairer share of the cost of government services.
And one more thing: grants should be conditional on income tax payments — you should have to show your Canada Revenue Agency Notice of Assessment at city hall in order to claim any grant.
Marion Smith
Richmond
