In the fall of 2016, a family home in Toronto’s exclusive Hoggs Hollow neighbourhood was put up for sale. It came with a long list of amenities: Four fireplaces, landscaped grounds, an expansive deck and patio, a fully equipped wet bar and a nanny suite with direct access to the kitchen.
The Hoggs Hollow mansion, meanwhile, was taxed as if it was worth $1 million less than its $3.95 million selling price. At the same time, the agency assessed the most expensive homes at values lower than what they sold for more often than the least expensive homes. “We work incredibly hard to get assessments right,” an MPAC spokesperson wrote in a statement. “But we also recognize that sometimes we won’t.”The accuracy of MPAC’s assessments impacts not only individual homeowners.. Toronto — and Ontario’s more than 400 other municipalities — rely on these assessments to set the property tax homeowners pay to fund our police departments, public transit, schools and other essential services.
“Everyone is supposed to be paying the same tax rate, which is their fair share of the burden,” said University of Chicago professor Christopher Berry, who has been studying the assessment industry for nearly a decade. “Effectively what happens is when I’m paying too much, I’m basically paying somebody else’s taxes. That’s unfair.”
MPAC assesses all properties as of a specific date set by the Ontario government. The assessed values are then phased in over four years. The Assessment Review Board, an Ontario tribunal that hears property assessment appeals, has used a five-per-cent range when comparing a property’s ASR to those of similar homes nearby to determine if its assessment is equitable.MPAC says it uses several measures to ensure its assessed values are “fair, accurate, predictable and transparent.”
These seemingly stellar results are little comfort to homeowners who find themselves on the losing side. “Accountants know that two plus two is four. Appraisers know that two plus two is somewhere between three-and-a-half and four-and-a-half,” he said. “We have to follow trends that people are setting. And sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don’t. Yet I’m supposed to predict what the value is going to be. And so they’ll never be perfect.
Property Property Latest News, Property Property Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: TorontoStar - 🏆 60. / 55 Read more »