Once again on Thursday, Sault Ste. Marie’s reputation got its annual black eye from the real estate website Zoocasa.com.
Once again, the annual headlines started appearing about the cities with the province’s highest property taxes.
Once again, people were forwarding news articles showing Sault Ste. Marie as having Ontario’s third-highest property taxes (1.588067 per cent), with only Windsor (1.818668) and Thunder Bay (1.59108) being more miserable places to exist.
Those headlines are an annual botheration to Malcolm White, chief administrative officer at the Ronald A. Irwin Civic Centre.
We've consistently placed third in Ontario in recent years and White says tax rates aren't telling the whole story if the Sault's low property assessment values aren't also taken into account.
"They do get into a little more detail in their article itself, providing a broader picture as to what makes up a tax bill," White says.
"It's unfortunate that they continue to use a headline and an assessment of property tax rates alone, because that is only part of the equation," he told SooToday.
"I used this example with you two or three years ago, and I'll use it again."
"If we looked to buy a transit bus. The price for a transit bus was around $592,000."
"To buy a new transit bus, it'll be that price in Sault Ste. Marie, or it would be that price in southern Ontario, too."
"That's the amount of money you would have to raise, in taxation, to pay for that bus."
"If you have a low assessment value, which is the case in Sault Ste. Marie and across northern Ontario, then you have to have a higher tax rate against that assessed value to get to the $592,000 that you need for the bus."
"If you are in southern Ontario and you use one of the municipalities that has a higher assessed value, then you will only need a lower tax rate to get to that same amount of money," White told us.
The recent skyrocketing of single-family home prices across Ontario has so far not been reflected in assessment values, he says.
"We won't see that trend reflected for a long time to come. Assessment is still being given by MPAC [Municipal Property Assessment Corp.] at the 2016 levels."
"It will be at least 2024 before we see re-assessment and values reflective of market assessment will be shown then."
Even if there's an assessment increase, White says, that doesn't automatically mean your taxes will increase.
"It's the amount of money that the municipality requires in its tax levy that determines how much taxes you're going to pay."
Meanwhile, the municipalities credited by Zoocasa with having the province's lowest tax rates are Toronto (0.611013 per cent), Markham (0.632908 per cent) and Richmond Hill (0.659549 per cent).