Tenant tax rate 174% higher than homeowners'

Apartment renters looking for help with tax fairness campaign, Dundas Star News, 03 Mar 2006

A group of apartment tenants is tired of paying unfairly inflated tax rates, and is looking for support from apartment renters across Hamilton to help close the gap between residential and multi-residential taxpayers...

Their municipal tax rate is currently 2.74 times that of residential taxpayers [in Hamilton]. Eighteen per cent of their monthly rent goes directly to municipal taxes.

Municipal staffers reply that while tenants pay a higher rate relative to property value, the vastly higher average value of homes means homeowners pay more in absolute terms.

A better measure of fairness is ability to pay, or the ratio of property tax assesment to income (which is more difficult to determine, and so infrequently enters the debate).

The real problem is that many tenants are unaware that they pay property tax through rent, and municipal political discourse is often suffused with the notion that only homeowners deserve to have a say in a city's affairs.