City Council is looking to the province to help with a move that could lessen the tax burden on residents.
They’re asking for an update to the methodology behind municipal taxation.
Councillor Mac Bain spoke to the committee report on Tuesday night, pointing out the system is over 100 years old.
“We have to find a better method than using property tax to pay for the provincial services that have been downloaded to us, as well as for the infrastructure deficits that we have,” he says.
On top of asking Queen’s Park to commit to revamping the way municipal services are funded the city is asking for a share of the Provincial Land Transfer Tax (LTT) to go towards infrastructure.
Originally the idea of asking the province to grant the city the ability to create its own land transfer tax was floated, but Mayor Al McDonald says that’s changed.
“We heard from the real estate board that a local land transfer tax would be detrimental to their organization and to our city. We really did appreciate their respectful lobby and working with us to find solutions and that’s exactly what happened,” he says.
Sue Symons, North Bay Real Estate Board President, presented to council at the end of November saying the increase in average residential home sales have resulted in an increase in the amount of tax revenue being collected by the province from the LTT.
