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Adding to the confusion

July 28, 2016   ·   0 Comments

THE PRESS RELEASE from the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) advising that Orangeville residents were going to receive new assessment notices included a single, largely fictional percentage.

Instead of disclosing that its assessors had determined that by last year the market value of residential properties had risen 20 per cent since 2012, the release said the property values “have increased on average 5 per cent per year since 2012.”

The fact of the matter is that there is no annual inspection upon which such a claim could be based, and in all likelyhood the inflation rose more than 5% in some years and less in others.

The only reason we can think of for using 5% instead of 20% is that the provincial government in its wisdom(?) is phasing the 20% jump in over the four years until the next re-assessment exercise in 2019.

Yet the fact of the matter is that the phase-in will have little or no impact on any property owner’s tax bill, since even a 20% hike in assessments can always be offset by a 20% cut in the municipality’s tax rate


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