Toronto

Toronto city council is unlikely to get its wish for a sales tax. They should instead raise property taxes, as they currently have the lowest property tax rate in the whole province.

I'm not sure that's a bright idea - people will get take their business elsewhere around the GTA. They should raise property taxes a bit instead - we have very low property taxes here (note that this would hurt me, but it's only sensible).

I don't think a municipal sales tax would help much. For shopping, people could visit adjacent cities with little effort, reducing the revenue for shopping malls inside Toronto. On-site business, like restaurants or cafes will take the burden.

I feel that our property tax rate is a bit low. For example, New York City has roundly 1% (https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-property-tax-calculator)

This is the best summary I could come up with:

It’s the big bang of Toronto city hall’s financial dreams: a local sales tax that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually and go a long way toward tackling a massive fiscal hole.

But city manager Paul Johnson said in a late-August presentation to Mayor Olivia Chow’s executive committee that a sales tax was the more immediately preferable of the two.

and budget chief Shelley Carroll likes to illustrate the problem using the example of pop star Taylor Swift’s six concert dates planned for late next year.

When fans pour into Toronto, little of their spending will boost the coffers of city hall, which may actually lose money on the events because of increased policing and transportation costs.

Ms. Carroll argues that a sales tax could not only capture economic growth but also help replenish city reserve funds during good times, giving it a more robust buffer when downturns occur.

A number of U.S. cities that have municipal sales taxes have faced additional financial struggles since the pandemic began, with fewer commuters coming into the downtown and spending correspondingly down.

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