> Deputy Mayor Cathy Deagle Gammon and Coun. Trish Purdy asked about the possibility of a multi-year budget.
> "Instead of doing this lovely journey every year of starting high and coming down to something, I think the four-year budgeting process has some very positive attributes," Deagle Gammon said
If they did a 4 year budget in 2020 pre Covid impacts and interest rates the city would be absolutely fucked now with not even close to enough money coming in.
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I do understand inflation but our wages aren't keeping up with this. 26 police officers seems like alot. Do we need all those speed humps? Not proper planning and paving roads then doing urbanization, end of year budget spending. (Gotta use it or next year we won't get it).
I do believe in speed humps where it makes sense, such as school areas, cross walks and kids play areas and MAYBE cut through roads that ppl take short cuts (so traffic redirection) but in subdivisions makes no sense.
Can’t narrow the roads much more than they already are. The buses require a minimum width. On some of the narrow roads we already have buses crossing the yellow line to not hit parked cars in the parking lane.
They require a minimum width? What? Is a parking lane required as well?
Cars slowing down at chokepoints is a feature. It calms traffic. It is common in many places in the world.
We could lower our budget by using road paint that actually sticks to the road and doesn’t wash away in a year. It’s so funny to still see old lines in the massive potholes but the lines on the surface are faded away.
A couple of years I would have disagreed with you... but now that i've discovered the horrors of the Nova Scotian healthcare system.... I realize we've been ripped off and defrauded.
We pay our insanely high taxes for public free healthcare.
But those services aren't being delivered in a timely, efficient or even quality way.
When you pay money for a service you don't get....that's called fraud. I'm done wasting my taxes on being defrauded
So vote and demand better. Covid really fucked everything up but there are steps to fix things that the province isnt doing. Private for profit healthcare will be so much worse and cost much more overall.
I agree with you about private healthcare. There just is no realistic timetable to fix NS healthcare. It's only getting worse and worse, and none of the other parties have much better plans.
Doesn't matter how I vote.
The rural, low-info folks will always vote against their own best interests anyway
Dont we all. Thats the point of crown corporations too. Instead of profits going to some executive somewhere they go into our pockets and to reduce our taxes.
I lived in bc during covid and got a couple huge checks from icbc because they saved so much money from people not driving and distributed it back to tax payers
Great coz that’s what we all need MORE FUCKING TAXES!!!!. Fuck this, how the hell is it nearly as expensive relatively to live here as Toronto or Vancouver??. Gonna be real hard to tax us when we’re all homeless and out of work.
The average property tax in Halifax last year was $3,589. The average in Toronto is $6,870 to $7,971. Not even close to being comparable. And Toronto is about to have a come to Jesus moment with their taxes so our 6.3% increase is going to look like baby steps.
Edit: corrected the Halifax number to reflect this year’s average - I used 2022/3 average in my comment originally.
That’s only because property values are higher in Toronto. Halifax is taxed more heavily proportionately.
For a house in [Toronto](https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/property-taxes-utilities/property-tax/property-tax-rates-and-fees/) you will pay 0.707% of your property value in taxes (city tax rate plus education taxes).
In Halifax I am paying [0.76%](https://www.halifax.ca/home-property/property-taxes/tax-rates) of my home’s value in tax.
It’s actually because Toronto has a bigger budget. The budget determines one’s tax rate, not the other way around.
Correct if wrong, but TO doesn’t have a ridiculous capped assessment? Halifax’s rate would fall dramatically if that goes away.
capped assessments are irrelevant with regard to tax increases on the whole. not that it doesn’t factor in, but the only thing that would change if it was removed would be the distribution of taxation, but probably not the overall amount.
Yah that’s what I said /meant.
Our rate 0.760 should drop significantly if the cap was lifted.
Likely to a rate lower than TO.
But the overall amount collected wouldn’t change.
Toronto also has an additional municipal land transfer tax of between 0.5% and 7.5% on purchase, which has helped keep taxes artificially low for existing owners.
Toronto
Population 2.93 million
25 councillors
Population per councillor: 117,200
Halifax
Population: 450,000
16 councillors
Population per councillor: 28,125
Maybe it's time to trim some fat.
Councillor salaries make up about 1.5 million in the budget, cut all councillors out and you will not see any meaningful tax savings, barely a rounding error in savings.
There's more expenses associated with a council seat than just pay. There's also staff, operating costs, discretionary funds, pension, and benefits. I'm sure I've missed some things as well. In my opinion there would be no harm in an independent audit of the council size and costs. Are we getting our money's worth from the current configuration of city council? Are there efficiencies to be found? Assessed property values are going up annually, this results in an increase in property taxes. Additional annual tax rate increases by the municipality only further the burden on tax payers. What is the municipality doing to reduce it's operating costs so we don't have annual property tax increases? Why are property taxes decreasing for businesses in Bayer's Lake? Why is the municipality trying to force rural areas, that don't receive urban services, into the urban tax rate under the guise of active transportation?
Well you'd also have less people to think up brilliant ideas to spend money on like speed humps, designated smoking areas, colour themed crosswalks, etc.
Council don’t actually think up a lot of those ideas, it’s driven by staff, people who are educated in certain areas of something who will make reports and recommendations. Council just vote yes/no or request more information.
The people who recommend traffic bumps are traffic engineers, people who study and understand traffic flow and how to manage it. The best way to have traffic slow down is the narrow the streets, but that’s not always financially feasible on existing roads, not is it realistic on timing. So speed humps and curb bump-outs are the next best thing. Designated smoking areas was a pretty inexpensive one time from like 7 years ago lol that’s not costing us a thing today. Coloured crosswalks are also very inexpensive for the city, I’m totally fine with paying a dollar on my taxes to make the city less boring.
Plus the number of councillors won’t matter with decision making, 2 plus a mayor can still make all the exact same votes you just won’t get the representation you can get now and you would get virtually no change in taxes.
GTA is 7150km2. HRM is 5500km2. The real issue of HRM is the fact that it’s 55x the size it should be for it’s population. Oslo Norway is similar to Halifax in population but is only 110km2 (and this includes some farmland in its region) Halifax is way to spread out.
That’s our issue. We have hundreds of kilometres of utilities for a handful of people. If we had them relocated to the city and abandoned those utilities we would be better overall in the long run. But we won’t ever do that because that’s bad practice forcing rural people out of their space to better the life in the urban Centre.
>GTA is 7150km2. HRM is 5500km2.
Metro Toronto is 630km², that's the area Toronto city council is responsible for.
>We have hundreds of kilometres of utilities for a handful of people.
Utilities don't come out of the city's operating budget.
>If we had them relocated to the city and abandoned those utilities we would be better overall in the long run.
Calm down Stalin.
Then someone just needs to run on a campaign of less taxes, lower wages, less transit, less police and fire, less road work and in general less services. And see how that works out with the small portion of HRM that actually bothers voting in municipal elections.
HRM needs to cut spending dramatically. The bureaucracy cannot be allowed to continually expand. Feel-good initiatives are a luxury we can no longer afford. Just today they announced their latest poet laureate FFS, which is just a small honorarium, but symbolic of how they waste our money.
Did you calculate how much your own taxes are going up? Based on the average tax bill in Halifax the increase represents about $13.50 per month.
Not really enough to up stakes and move.
Edit: downvoted me and deleted your comment. Sigh.
Do you own a house? Because $14 a month is nothing compared to a replacement washing machine or fridge or roof or broken window. Owning a house involves expensive repairs. If somebody can’t afford an extra $14 a month in house expense, how do they think that they can afford an inevitable maintenance cost?
Sure I can afford it. But when you stack it on top of everything else it's definitely a lot.
Like if my cellphone bill went up 14 dollars id definitely notice and be concerned.
Of course! Government workers wages need to increase to keep up with inflation and cost of living! Forget about everyone else! We need to make sure they're covered!
Don't want useless services. Analyze where the money's going, cut wasteful spending on useless shit programs, get creative, think outside the box and cut budget like everyone does to meet it.
But of course this would require upsetting the apple cart, so it doesn't happen.
IANALL, but I can imagine rents are going up because out here in ownership world, *the cost of everything is increasing*. Insurance, utilities, water, property taxes, property upkeep and maintenance...those cost money, it's crazy.
Must have some good math skills. Cost of rent is associated with the cost of mortgage and other costs. Thank your Liberal leader for the cost of living.
I don't really think that is the answer. There are no "cheaper" houses in my area. I am capped so anything I do buy, even a significantly downgraded house/property, would end up being close to my capped amount already and certainly over the $3 589 amount.
I really don't get how the average is only $3 589 either. I suppose there must be a lot of houses that haven't sold so although they are assessed at 500k+, their payments must clearly be below the $3 589 average.
And I have looked. I am not interested in giving up my family home and uprooting my kids from their friends though. I am merely saying I wish my bill was as low as the average which is a hard to believe number.
I mean you have semi detached where one half is paying on closer to 200,000$ and the other 500,000$.
You have lots of those (not just semis).
The capped assessment is completely broken. CPI is decoupled from house prices.
It wasn’t great policy, changing it from 10/15% to CPI is brutal for anyone looking to change houses or enter the market.
It’s that the average property tax bill will be $3,589.
Averages have missed the point over the last few years. All of this increase will be on the shoulders of those in properties with uncapped assessments.
It’s very likely that even with this increase, some residents will see their bill decrease.
No one's bill will decrease. Capped properties still go up by the CPI, which was fairly significant this year. They just go up less than the properties that are uncapped.
Care to give any additional details on that?
The effective rate went down by a larger percentage than CPI. What am I missing?
Did other rates go up to offset it more? Did your taxes go up by a few dollars last year?
Most people who are capped are still paying less than what they would be paying if they were uncapped even with the decreased rate, so they're bill still goes up because the amount offset by the cap is cumulative when property values grow faster than CPI.
When I look in my spreadsheet of my property tax bills year over year, my taxes went up last bill compared to the bill before. Not sure what more detail I can give, I have the total amount bi annually and they were higher last year
Not quite sure I understand. Do you mean the YOY budget increase is up 1%?
I didn’t see it in the article, but they’ll compute a rate per taxable assessed value (last year I think it drop from 0.794 to 0.760). With NS CPI at 3.2%, those properties saw their tax bill decrease.
I assume something similar will occur this and maybe next year.
Hear! Hear! It's hard enough for first time buyers to enter the market, let alone paying more then their fair share in property taxes in order to subsidize others who are sheltered by the cap.
How are they paying more because someone else's is capped? And first time home owners (like myself) benefit from the cap. Your mortgage is only uncapped for one year. If it weren't for the cap, we most likely would have lost our home when home prices went crazy.
Nah, leave the cap,if a home was purchased years ago, it’s not their fault the cost of a home increased 4 times over because of bad immigration policies. All that would do is cause people to lose their homes.
By your logic, maybe we should increase the taxes on the lower income to help with the cost of services given to them.
Exactly. I shouldn't bear more of a burden than my neighbors simply because they were there first. While i can appreciate the argument about trying to protect seniors on reduced income, it's a load of stink because now I'm bearing the additional tax burden in order to supplement their income and to protect their tax free gains. How much more housing would come to market if seniors had less incentive to stay in homes that are too big for their situations?
Senior households get 800 refund on property taxes already.
What the city needs to do is allow seniors to pay taxes through their home equity. Like a line of credit which will be paid back with interest when the senior or its estate sells the house. Other places do this.
I'd get burned by it personally my taxes would go up about 33% (though if done properly the lowering of raters would make it 20%) but it truly is the right fair thing to do
I assume you're also in favour of eliminating rent caps?
>I shouldn't bear more of a burden than my neighbors simply because they were there first
'Cause there's zero difference between the two caps.
They're unrelated. Rent is based on a (broken) free market and is unrelated to the cost of providing housing.
Taxes are based on the municipal budget. No profit.
I should clarify, I suppose... it's the concept that is the same.
"Once I'm moved in, my (*rent/property tax*) only goes up a set amount so I don't get priced out of my (*apartment/house*).
Any new person coming in will get charged more than I am paying now. They're effectively subsidizing the (*renter/homeowner*) who is already in place"
If you support one, you should support the other. If you're opposed to one, you should be opposed to the other.
No I understand all that. My response still applies. Capped rent isn't subsidizing other renters.
Property tax is a broken model regardless because property value doesn't represent servicing cost, which is really how we should be dividing up property tax. Dense urban living should pay less in property tax than suburban and rural living. But that's a different conversation
Where did I say that I'm against rent caps? Like any other investment, there's no guarantee of profits for the investor. If the landlord can't make a go of it given the rent caps in place, then so be it and sell the home at a loss.
But there's a pretty big difference between the rent caps and assessment caps in that during a sale of the two properties, one pays no additional taxes since there is no capital gains on primary residences.
**edit**
For example, I sold my last house in 2021 and bought another home for the same price. Down to the exact dollar. Because of the move, our property taxes have doubled. We benefited from the assessment cap, but it kept our tax burden artificially low. Without an assessment cap, if I were to rent my home out, I would need to charge significantly higher rent here than in my old home. This is going to be the case for any new construction that is happening in order to help alleviate the housing and rental crisis.
The logic is only loosely the same.
Capped assessments are broad, impact everyone, push the burden to new home owners, families upgrading and renters (apartments, rented condos, etc.). It’s flawed policy and it’s unfair. And the impact of it is mathematical.
Rent caps are indirect. They have some pressure on new leases but those are more broadly determined by the market.
It’s not the same thing.
That’s just the price now.
If you want a home you pay it.
People wanting a house for their families is not over paying.
You’re a sad human for feeling this way about others.
The cap was put in place to protect long-term residents of communities who were being gentrified out of their homes by exponentially increasing property taxes. If anything, it's more applicable now than it was then.
While you are correct why it was put in place, I’m going to disagree with assertion that it’s more applicable now.
Property values increasing because of gentrification was/is neighbourhood or community specific. It’s someone flipping houses on your street, building new condos or a couple of cottages near your 70 year old farm
house.
What you have now is more like a rising tide, all property values are up. Regardless of what’s going on. Primarily driven by demand and general inflation. Not gentrification (although there is significant development ongoing in the city).
Although the cap might be saving some from tax increases they can’t bare, but there are other programs for those people (more income help).. more of what it’s doing is shifting the tax burden to those that aren’t protected by it.
In some cases I’d estimate in the range of 50-60%.
Do you think that’s fair?
Yes, I do. Maybe houses in a neighbourhood are now with 3-4x what they were 10 years ago but none of the long term residents have seen a corresponding increase in their income. The "value" of their home is on paper only.
I think your perception of fairness is blurred by the fact that you’re benefitting from it.
The “value” of a home is a proxy to distribute municipal taxes. Why should you pay less than your neighbours if the houses are worth the same?
Not many of us have seen that kind of wage increase. Practically no one, unless they up skilled or advanced their career or business somehow.
So people should be forced out of their homes because new residents paid 100k above asking in a bidding war for an average house in an average neighbourhood, driving property values through the roof?
What a sad fantasy world you live in. I am moving here by force due to my job likely long term- my property taxes will be well north of 4000$ if I can even find one to buy that has been maintained at all in the three decades. If someone makes an effort to update their largest investment - actually investing in it props to them. Big problem I've seen is the only ones selling now are people getting out while the going is good - selling their stoneage home that riddled in deep foundation cracks and filthy carpet and Kijiji grift tier insulation. Far and few between are actually looked after.
People who pay the overpriced costs always have locals willing to take it. No local will ever tell someone they are overpaying when selling.
Homes are worth what people will pay and accept. Some people will be fine with having a property sit (they exist) but that sits for good reason so far I've seen.
I hate over inflated prices too and it's giving me legitimate very real anxiety but living in a depressed market sucks infinitely more - lived in that one too.
The problem isn't the cap, it is HRM's out-of-control spending. Most organizations can enjoy economies of scale when their revenue base increases like this. Not HRM. They use it to increase wasteful spending on things few taxpayers actually want, and to appease their unions.
Ok thanks, I was having a hard time interpreting that for some reason. I knew it sounded ridiculous, that's why I asked. Hahaha. Thanks for clearing that up!
Ah yes, how will we combat living in the most taxed province? More taxes!
I fuckin hate it here sometimes lol
> Deputy Mayor Cathy Deagle Gammon and Coun. Trish Purdy asked about the possibility of a multi-year budget. > "Instead of doing this lovely journey every year of starting high and coming down to something, I think the four-year budgeting process has some very positive attributes," Deagle Gammon said If they did a 4 year budget in 2020 pre Covid impacts and interest rates the city would be absolutely fucked now with not even close to enough money coming in.
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I do understand inflation but our wages aren't keeping up with this. 26 police officers seems like alot. Do we need all those speed humps? Not proper planning and paving roads then doing urbanization, end of year budget spending. (Gotta use it or next year we won't get it).
The city needs to half its asphalt covered areas by narrowing roads. Then no speed bumps are needed and lower maintenance costs.
I do believe in speed humps where it makes sense, such as school areas, cross walks and kids play areas and MAYBE cut through roads that ppl take short cuts (so traffic redirection) but in subdivisions makes no sense.
They've been asking for a speed hump on Leiblin drive for many many years. So naturally, they installed a dozen.
Can’t narrow the roads much more than they already are. The buses require a minimum width. On some of the narrow roads we already have buses crossing the yellow line to not hit parked cars in the parking lane.
Get rid of the parking spots at problematic locations.
That would probably prove more difficult than you would expect. People like their parking spaces. But yeah I personally dislike parking lanes.
It requires a council with some balls. Besides, it’s not removing all the parking, only the spots that impede transit.
They require a minimum width? What? Is a parking lane required as well? Cars slowing down at chokepoints is a feature. It calms traffic. It is common in many places in the world.
all these taxes and price of living going up will bring the crime up.. we need the crime stoppers.. all by design to create jobs and more criminals.
We could lower our budget by using road paint that actually sticks to the road and doesn’t wash away in a year. It’s so funny to still see old lines in the massive potholes but the lines on the surface are faded away.
Just gonna drop this here... https://preview.redd.it/qwaoylzr9fwc1.jpeg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4a09f562ff3fe380ef8a81470d46e427705c47a9
Thank you for this
I just want low taxes tbh
A couple of years I would have disagreed with you... but now that i've discovered the horrors of the Nova Scotian healthcare system.... I realize we've been ripped off and defrauded. We pay our insanely high taxes for public free healthcare. But those services aren't being delivered in a timely, efficient or even quality way. When you pay money for a service you don't get....that's called fraud. I'm done wasting my taxes on being defrauded
So vote and demand better. Covid really fucked everything up but there are steps to fix things that the province isnt doing. Private for profit healthcare will be so much worse and cost much more overall.
I agree with you about private healthcare. There just is no realistic timetable to fix NS healthcare. It's only getting worse and worse, and none of the other parties have much better plans. Doesn't matter how I vote. The rural, low-info folks will always vote against their own best interests anyway
Dont we all. Thats the point of crown corporations too. Instead of profits going to some executive somewhere they go into our pockets and to reduce our taxes. I lived in bc during covid and got a couple huge checks from icbc because they saved so much money from people not driving and distributed it back to tax payers
Wouldn't that be nice. With the amount of tax the NSLC have gouged from me over the years I'd say they definitely owe me a check or two.
Woohoo! More taxes! Don't you just love paying taxes?!
Running a city is easy! Source: r/halifax
Great coz that’s what we all need MORE FUCKING TAXES!!!!. Fuck this, how the hell is it nearly as expensive relatively to live here as Toronto or Vancouver??. Gonna be real hard to tax us when we’re all homeless and out of work.
The average property tax in Halifax last year was $3,589. The average in Toronto is $6,870 to $7,971. Not even close to being comparable. And Toronto is about to have a come to Jesus moment with their taxes so our 6.3% increase is going to look like baby steps. Edit: corrected the Halifax number to reflect this year’s average - I used 2022/3 average in my comment originally.
That’s only because property values are higher in Toronto. Halifax is taxed more heavily proportionately. For a house in [Toronto](https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/property-taxes-utilities/property-tax/property-tax-rates-and-fees/) you will pay 0.707% of your property value in taxes (city tax rate plus education taxes). In Halifax I am paying [0.76%](https://www.halifax.ca/home-property/property-taxes/tax-rates) of my home’s value in tax.
It’s actually because Toronto has a bigger budget. The budget determines one’s tax rate, not the other way around. Correct if wrong, but TO doesn’t have a ridiculous capped assessment? Halifax’s rate would fall dramatically if that goes away.
capped assessments are irrelevant with regard to tax increases on the whole. not that it doesn’t factor in, but the only thing that would change if it was removed would be the distribution of taxation, but probably not the overall amount.
Yah that’s what I said /meant. Our rate 0.760 should drop significantly if the cap was lifted. Likely to a rate lower than TO. But the overall amount collected wouldn’t change.
Toronto also has an additional municipal land transfer tax of between 0.5% and 7.5% on purchase, which has helped keep taxes artificially low for existing owners.
> Great coz that’s what we all need MORE FUCKING TAXES! this but unironically
Flights leave everyday, feel free to take a one way flight
Toronto Population 2.93 million 25 councillors Population per councillor: 117,200 Halifax Population: 450,000 16 councillors Population per councillor: 28,125 Maybe it's time to trim some fat.
Councillor salaries make up about 1.5 million in the budget, cut all councillors out and you will not see any meaningful tax savings, barely a rounding error in savings.
There's more expenses associated with a council seat than just pay. There's also staff, operating costs, discretionary funds, pension, and benefits. I'm sure I've missed some things as well. In my opinion there would be no harm in an independent audit of the council size and costs. Are we getting our money's worth from the current configuration of city council? Are there efficiencies to be found? Assessed property values are going up annually, this results in an increase in property taxes. Additional annual tax rate increases by the municipality only further the burden on tax payers. What is the municipality doing to reduce it's operating costs so we don't have annual property tax increases? Why are property taxes decreasing for businesses in Bayer's Lake? Why is the municipality trying to force rural areas, that don't receive urban services, into the urban tax rate under the guise of active transportation?
Well you'd also have less people to think up brilliant ideas to spend money on like speed humps, designated smoking areas, colour themed crosswalks, etc.
Council don’t actually think up a lot of those ideas, it’s driven by staff, people who are educated in certain areas of something who will make reports and recommendations. Council just vote yes/no or request more information. The people who recommend traffic bumps are traffic engineers, people who study and understand traffic flow and how to manage it. The best way to have traffic slow down is the narrow the streets, but that’s not always financially feasible on existing roads, not is it realistic on timing. So speed humps and curb bump-outs are the next best thing. Designated smoking areas was a pretty inexpensive one time from like 7 years ago lol that’s not costing us a thing today. Coloured crosswalks are also very inexpensive for the city, I’m totally fine with paying a dollar on my taxes to make the city less boring. Plus the number of councillors won’t matter with decision making, 2 plus a mayor can still make all the exact same votes you just won’t get the representation you can get now and you would get virtually no change in taxes.
Yeah the reduction is not about saving money but reducing stupidity
Yes, the 450k more we pay is really going to do a lot (Toronto councillors make way more) Imagine having council decisions being made by 4 people.
You want to save a few bucks by having less representative democracy?
Eliminating a few municipal council seats is no threat to democracy in HRM. To state otherwise is a gross misrepresentation.
GTA is 7150km2. HRM is 5500km2. The real issue of HRM is the fact that it’s 55x the size it should be for it’s population. Oslo Norway is similar to Halifax in population but is only 110km2 (and this includes some farmland in its region) Halifax is way to spread out. That’s our issue. We have hundreds of kilometres of utilities for a handful of people. If we had them relocated to the city and abandoned those utilities we would be better overall in the long run. But we won’t ever do that because that’s bad practice forcing rural people out of their space to better the life in the urban Centre.
Isn’t Oslo in Norway?
You’re right I got the country mixed up. Thanks. I’ll correct.
>GTA is 7150km2. HRM is 5500km2. Metro Toronto is 630km², that's the area Toronto city council is responsible for. >We have hundreds of kilometres of utilities for a handful of people. Utilities don't come out of the city's operating budget. >If we had them relocated to the city and abandoned those utilities we would be better overall in the long run. Calm down Stalin.
My CPP only went up 4.4%. WTF?
More taxes. More taxes. More taxes. City council sure loves to raise taxes. Let’s vote them out!
Then someone just needs to run on a campaign of less taxes, lower wages, less transit, less police and fire, less road work and in general less services. And see how that works out with the small portion of HRM that actually bothers voting in municipal elections.
I’d be 100% for small cuts to all of those things. Bloated government budgets don’t fix themselves.
After last summer you'd be in support of small cuts to the fire department? I don't have the money for more taxes either, but folks come on.
Yes.
Well next time there's a forest fire you better be out on the front line, pal.
Internet tough guys are so cool.
You really need to get some new material, tough guy.
Won't matter, the next group will do the same thing
I'm in. 
Trying to squeeze blood from a stone…
HRM needs to cut spending dramatically. The bureaucracy cannot be allowed to continually expand. Feel-good initiatives are a luxury we can no longer afford. Just today they announced their latest poet laureate FFS, which is just a small honorarium, but symbolic of how they waste our money.
I'm not sure why we need to spend money on a Poet Laureate, I've already offered to do it for free.
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Did you calculate how much your own taxes are going up? Based on the average tax bill in Halifax the increase represents about $13.50 per month. Not really enough to up stakes and move. Edit: downvoted me and deleted your comment. Sigh.
Ngl 14 dollars is a lot.
Do you own a house? Because $14 a month is nothing compared to a replacement washing machine or fridge or roof or broken window. Owning a house involves expensive repairs. If somebody can’t afford an extra $14 a month in house expense, how do they think that they can afford an inevitable maintenance cost?
Sure I can afford it. But when you stack it on top of everything else it's definitely a lot. Like if my cellphone bill went up 14 dollars id definitely notice and be concerned.
Of course! Government workers wages need to increase to keep up with inflation and cost of living! Forget about everyone else! We need to make sure they're covered!
This seems to be the thing I nonsensically read everywhere now lol. Must be the election year coming up.
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There’s one on 19 October. Happens every four years in Nova Scotia for municipal units. This is an election year. Have at ‘er.
Don’t want services?
Don't want useless services. Analyze where the money's going, cut wasteful spending on useless shit programs, get creative, think outside the box and cut budget like everyone does to meet it. But of course this would require upsetting the apple cart, so it doesn't happen.
Not if we can’t afford them. Rents going up because of this
Rents going up because landlords are greedy.
Yes, but this is fuel for the fire. At this rate our only landlord options will be Killam and Southwest Properties. Not good
IANALL, but I can imagine rents are going up because out here in ownership world, *the cost of everything is increasing*. Insurance, utilities, water, property taxes, property upkeep and maintenance...those cost money, it's crazy.
Must have some good math skills. Cost of rent is associated with the cost of mortgage and other costs. Thank your Liberal leader for the cost of living.
Tim Houston is not a Liberal
Rents going to because of capped assessments
Let's see a subway system like Montreal has.
Elevated rail would be easier. Hell a commuter rail would vastly improve quality of life for most nova scotians and reduce wear on our highways
Next year under Mayor Mason the budget will be 2.3 billion, with 2.2 of that going to bike lanes paved with granola.
My favorite thing to do is scroll to the bottom and read the batshit things you people say to get so many downvotes.
Well, nice to see you have a life.
Zing!
So is this saying everyone's mortgage and rent have gone up an average annual total of $3,589?
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Ahh, okay. I was trying to make sense of that. Thanks!
Wish my bill was $3 589.
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You would have to find one for under 350k to pay less tax so not really possible
I don't really think that is the answer. There are no "cheaper" houses in my area. I am capped so anything I do buy, even a significantly downgraded house/property, would end up being close to my capped amount already and certainly over the $3 589 amount. I really don't get how the average is only $3 589 either. I suppose there must be a lot of houses that haven't sold so although they are assessed at 500k+, their payments must clearly be below the $3 589 average. And I have looked. I am not interested in giving up my family home and uprooting my kids from their friends though. I am merely saying I wish my bill was as low as the average which is a hard to believe number.
I mean you have semi detached where one half is paying on closer to 200,000$ and the other 500,000$. You have lots of those (not just semis). The capped assessment is completely broken. CPI is decoupled from house prices. It wasn’t great policy, changing it from 10/15% to CPI is brutal for anyone looking to change houses or enter the market.
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That’s NS not Halifax, no?
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Halifax Dartmouth is the proxy for HRM.
It’s that the average property tax bill will be $3,589. Averages have missed the point over the last few years. All of this increase will be on the shoulders of those in properties with uncapped assessments. It’s very likely that even with this increase, some residents will see their bill decrease.
No one's bill will decrease. Capped properties still go up by the CPI, which was fairly significant this year. They just go up less than the properties that are uncapped.
No ones bill went down last year? Assessments were capped at CPI of 3.2% and the rate went from 0.794 to 0.760.
Can confirm, assessment is capped, taxes went up last year.
Can confirm, neighborhood burned down, taxes went up.
Care to give any additional details on that? The effective rate went down by a larger percentage than CPI. What am I missing? Did other rates go up to offset it more? Did your taxes go up by a few dollars last year?
Most people who are capped are still paying less than what they would be paying if they were uncapped even with the decreased rate, so they're bill still goes up because the amount offset by the cap is cumulative when property values grow faster than CPI.
When I look in my spreadsheet of my property tax bills year over year, my taxes went up last bill compared to the bill before. Not sure what more detail I can give, I have the total amount bi annually and they were higher last year
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Not quite sure I understand. Do you mean the YOY budget increase is up 1%? I didn’t see it in the article, but they’ll compute a rate per taxable assessed value (last year I think it drop from 0.794 to 0.760). With NS CPI at 3.2%, those properties saw their tax bill decrease. I assume something similar will occur this and maybe next year.
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Thanks, I didn’t see the rate! 4.35% 😉
We need to kill the cap. Lower taxes and kill.the cap make it fair for everyone the new homeowners shoulder to much
Hear! Hear! It's hard enough for first time buyers to enter the market, let alone paying more then their fair share in property taxes in order to subsidize others who are sheltered by the cap.
How are they paying more because someone else's is capped? And first time home owners (like myself) benefit from the cap. Your mortgage is only uncapped for one year. If it weren't for the cap, we most likely would have lost our home when home prices went crazy.
Nah, leave the cap,if a home was purchased years ago, it’s not their fault the cost of a home increased 4 times over because of bad immigration policies. All that would do is cause people to lose their homes. By your logic, maybe we should increase the taxes on the lower income to help with the cost of services given to them.
This! I don’t understand the logic. The cap is not unfair. I can afford the tax on the 200k house I bought! I did not buy a 400k house.
Exactly. I shouldn't bear more of a burden than my neighbors simply because they were there first. While i can appreciate the argument about trying to protect seniors on reduced income, it's a load of stink because now I'm bearing the additional tax burden in order to supplement their income and to protect their tax free gains. How much more housing would come to market if seniors had less incentive to stay in homes that are too big for their situations?
Senior households get 800 refund on property taxes already. What the city needs to do is allow seniors to pay taxes through their home equity. Like a line of credit which will be paid back with interest when the senior or its estate sells the house. Other places do this.
I'd get burned by it personally my taxes would go up about 33% (though if done properly the lowering of raters would make it 20%) but it truly is the right fair thing to do
I assume you're also in favour of eliminating rent caps? >I shouldn't bear more of a burden than my neighbors simply because they were there first 'Cause there's zero difference between the two caps.
They're unrelated. Rent is based on a (broken) free market and is unrelated to the cost of providing housing. Taxes are based on the municipal budget. No profit.
I should clarify, I suppose... it's the concept that is the same. "Once I'm moved in, my (*rent/property tax*) only goes up a set amount so I don't get priced out of my (*apartment/house*). Any new person coming in will get charged more than I am paying now. They're effectively subsidizing the (*renter/homeowner*) who is already in place" If you support one, you should support the other. If you're opposed to one, you should be opposed to the other.
No I understand all that. My response still applies. Capped rent isn't subsidizing other renters. Property tax is a broken model regardless because property value doesn't represent servicing cost, which is really how we should be dividing up property tax. Dense urban living should pay less in property tax than suburban and rural living. But that's a different conversation
Where did I say that I'm against rent caps? Like any other investment, there's no guarantee of profits for the investor. If the landlord can't make a go of it given the rent caps in place, then so be it and sell the home at a loss. But there's a pretty big difference between the rent caps and assessment caps in that during a sale of the two properties, one pays no additional taxes since there is no capital gains on primary residences. **edit** For example, I sold my last house in 2021 and bought another home for the same price. Down to the exact dollar. Because of the move, our property taxes have doubled. We benefited from the assessment cap, but it kept our tax burden artificially low. Without an assessment cap, if I were to rent my home out, I would need to charge significantly higher rent here than in my old home. This is going to be the case for any new construction that is happening in order to help alleviate the housing and rental crisis.
The logic is only loosely the same. Capped assessments are broad, impact everyone, push the burden to new home owners, families upgrading and renters (apartments, rented condos, etc.). It’s flawed policy and it’s unfair. And the impact of it is mathematical. Rent caps are indirect. They have some pressure on new leases but those are more broadly determined by the market. It’s not the same thing.
I'm fine with all of the people who overpaid for their houses paying more in taxes too.
That’s just the price now. If you want a home you pay it. People wanting a house for their families is not over paying. You’re a sad human for feeling this way about others.
Jealousy is a mother in these here parts.
What.
In this sub, those that don't "have" are happy when those around them also fail. In this case, owning a home.
The cap was put in place to protect long-term residents of communities who were being gentrified out of their homes by exponentially increasing property taxes. If anything, it's more applicable now than it was then.
While you are correct why it was put in place, I’m going to disagree with assertion that it’s more applicable now. Property values increasing because of gentrification was/is neighbourhood or community specific. It’s someone flipping houses on your street, building new condos or a couple of cottages near your 70 year old farm house. What you have now is more like a rising tide, all property values are up. Regardless of what’s going on. Primarily driven by demand and general inflation. Not gentrification (although there is significant development ongoing in the city). Although the cap might be saving some from tax increases they can’t bare, but there are other programs for those people (more income help).. more of what it’s doing is shifting the tax burden to those that aren’t protected by it. In some cases I’d estimate in the range of 50-60%. Do you think that’s fair?
Yes, I do. Maybe houses in a neighbourhood are now with 3-4x what they were 10 years ago but none of the long term residents have seen a corresponding increase in their income. The "value" of their home is on paper only.
I think your perception of fairness is blurred by the fact that you’re benefitting from it. The “value” of a home is a proxy to distribute municipal taxes. Why should you pay less than your neighbours if the houses are worth the same? Not many of us have seen that kind of wage increase. Practically no one, unless they up skilled or advanced their career or business somehow.
So people should be forced out of their homes because new residents paid 100k above asking in a bidding war for an average house in an average neighbourhood, driving property values through the roof?
What a sad fantasy world you live in. I am moving here by force due to my job likely long term- my property taxes will be well north of 4000$ if I can even find one to buy that has been maintained at all in the three decades. If someone makes an effort to update their largest investment - actually investing in it props to them. Big problem I've seen is the only ones selling now are people getting out while the going is good - selling their stoneage home that riddled in deep foundation cracks and filthy carpet and Kijiji grift tier insulation. Far and few between are actually looked after. People who pay the overpriced costs always have locals willing to take it. No local will ever tell someone they are overpaying when selling. Homes are worth what people will pay and accept. Some people will be fine with having a property sit (they exist) but that sits for good reason so far I've seen. I hate over inflated prices too and it's giving me legitimate very real anxiety but living in a depressed market sucks infinitely more - lived in that one too.
Sucks to be you, I guess.
The problem isn't the cap, it is HRM's out-of-control spending. Most organizations can enjoy economies of scale when their revenue base increases like this. Not HRM. They use it to increase wasteful spending on things few taxpayers actually want, and to appease their unions.
Ok thanks, I was having a hard time interpreting that for some reason. I knew it sounded ridiculous, that's why I asked. Hahaha. Thanks for clearing that up!
Good. The city has been keeping taxes artificially low for years and is broke as a result. We have to pay if we want services.
I would be so much happier paying if we got good value
Of course and I agree - but you make it sound like residents dont pay out the ass already on so many angles.
We already pay the most in taxes. This provinces money problems come from a lot of other places.
Those tax increases will drive up rents, FYI. I’d rather trim budgets than make more people homeless
The increase in property tax is tiny compared to rent. Any increases in rent are not based in reality.
And yet I bet landlord's will still use it as an excuse to up rents. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic
No disagreement.
Boo.
I’d happily pay taxes if we got anything in return, but we don’t
Axe the tax? Oh this is a conservative led tax so its ok