{"id":910344,"date":"2026-09-26T12:16:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T12:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/910344\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T12:16:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T12:16:27","slug":"ontarios-taxing-problem-with-property-owners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/910344\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario\u2019s taxing problem with property owners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul Sullivan, a B.C. property-tax consultant, is campaigning to lift Ontario\u2019s freeze on property-tax assessments.Jennifer Gauthier\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a kind of ticking tax bomb.<\/p>\n

At the height of the COVID-19 emergency in 2020, Ontario ordered the non-profit corporation that reassesses property values across the province to take a pause, freezing the price estimates that municipalities use to calculate property-tax bills.<\/p>\n

As taxpayers know full well, the freeze didn\u2019t stop municipalities from raising their taxes: It just froze the valuations on which those property-tax bills are based, which are normally done in the province every four years. <\/p>\n

Six years later, with other pandemic restrictions long gone, the government of Premier Doug Ford never turned its assessment system back on. Now, lifting this freeze, critics warn, could have explosive political consequences \u2013 but so could leaving it in place. <\/p>\n

If assessments resumed, property owners with real estate that rose more in value than the average in their communities could face the sticker-shock of higher property-tax bills. <\/p>\n

But the freeze has also created another problem, experts point out. It has meant that other taxpayers, whose homes and businesses didn\u2019t appreciate as quickly, or sank in value, have long been paying more than they otherwise would have \u2013 in some cases, thousands of dollars a year more.<\/p>\n

Almost half of Ontario condo units are worth less than $500,000 as prices plunge, MPAC reports<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul Sullivan, a B.C. property-tax consultant, argues it is time to rip off the Band-Aid. The national tax and advocacy leader for his consulting firm, Ryan ULC, Mr. Sullivan has launched a campaign to lift Ontario\u2019s freeze. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that the biggest problem with this issue is education and transparency,\u201d Mr. Sullivan said in an interview. \u201cPeople just don\u2019t know. And if they did know, there would be outrage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Property assessments in Ontario for the municipal tax purposes are conducted by the non-profit Municipal Property Assessment Corp. Any increase in a property\u2019s value is phased in gradually over four years, before the next assessment. MPAC was about to issue a reassessment for 2020, when COVID-19 struck. <\/p>\n

This means MPAC\u2019s last estimated values date from January, 2016. So Ontario property taxpayers have been paying bills based on that fully-phased-in 2016 value, now a decade out of date, for the past six years. <\/p>\n

According to data MPAC provided to The Globe and Mail, residential properties across the province saw an estimated average price increase of 91 per cent from 2016 to 2025, with the figure for the GTA at 72 per cent \u2013 numbers that have slid back down a bit from large postpandemic spikes. MPAC estimates the median increase for commercial properties across the province at 103 per cent. <\/p>\n

Other provinces (except for New Brunswick, which put in a one-year freeze this year as it reforms its property-tax system), have their regular reassessment systems running. B.C. and Alberta reassess properties every year. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which represents local governments across the province, has long called for a return to normal and suggested in a letter to the Premier in July that reassessments should be done every two years.<\/p>\n

The Ontario government has said it is consulting on the issue. Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy told reporters in June he had no \u201ctime frame\u201d on restarting reassessments. On Thursday he said the government was still reviewing the issue: \u201cWe have gone through a pandemic. We\u2019re going through a tariff situation. We\u2019ve had a lot of uncertainty and what people want is certainty.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr. Ford\u2019s critics note that the Premier regularly boasts of never raising a tax \u2013 and they suggest that a return to reassessments might prompt some taxpayers to blame him for their rising bills. <\/p>\n

Unpacking the Carney government\u2019s $2.7-billion housing pledge<\/a><\/p>\n

Tax experts are quick to point out that a higher assessed value does not necessarily mean a higher property tax bill \u2013 that depends on whether your property rose more than the average in your municipality. A reassessment also has no bearing on the taxes you have already paid. And it does not mean your city gets a tax windfall. It just redistributes the basis for the tax burden differently, across the same taxpayers. <\/p>\n

Those unknowingly paying too much because of the assessment freeze, Mr. Sullivan says, include many homeowners in the east Toronto inner suburb of Scarborough, where real estate prices in some neighbourhoods rose more slowly than elsewhere in the city.<\/p>\n

His firm\u2019s researchers reviewed the assessments and sales prices of 1,643 detached Scarborough homes that changed hands last year. They estimate that 40 per cent were paying more than $1,000 too much in property taxes. <\/p>\n

The current condo crash has also produced more victims: Across the entire city of Toronto, Mr. Sullivan estimates that half of condo owners \u2013 based on 2025 sale prices \u2013 were also overpaying. <\/p>\n

Among businesses, he says, the struggling regional shopping mall is among the worst hit. With the growth of online retail, malls have dramatically faded in value over the past 10 years \u2013 and yet are still paying property taxes as though it was 2016. <\/p>\n

He also says it\u2019s a similar story for many small retailers on main streets in Toronto, based on data he has pulled from 3,000 commercial sales between 2023 and 2025. Some retailers, Mr. Sullivan calculates, are being overcharged by tens of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, businesses in the logistics and warehousing sector have been getting away with a break on their taxes and could end up paying more, Mr. Sullivan said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Sullivan\u2019s numbers are illustrative, but not exact tax-bill calculations. They assume taxpayers would owe taxes based on the full sale value of their properties, and therefore don\u2019t reflect the four-year phase-in period that was part of Ontario\u2019s system before it was shut off.<\/p>\n

Previous changes to the assessment system have required governments to bring in measures to ease the transition.<\/p>\n

Before Ontario\u2019s current-value assessment system was adopted in 1998, residential properties in the former central city of Toronto were taxed on values set way back in 1940, while other municipalities used different dates. The new system, meant to fix the distortions this created, required a series of legislative moves to soften the impact on businesses. <\/p>\n

After 1998, reassessments were initially done every year. But in 2007, the Liberal government of the day froze them after Ontario\u2019s Ombudsman had condemned MPAC\u2019s processes as secretive and unfair. In 2009, reassessments restarted with a new four-year phase-in period.<\/p>\n

How are property tax rates calculated and what do they pay for?<\/a><\/p>\n

John Kiru, the executive director of the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA), says he is skeptical of Mr. Sullivan\u2019s data and fears that a reassessment will harm already struggling storefronts in the city\u2019s main-street shopping districts, such as those on pricey land near transit stations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we going to shut down a bunch of small businesses in Little Italy, in Greektown, in Cabbagetown, et cetera, if these tax shifts happen?\u201d Mr. Kiru said in an interview. <\/p>\n

Back in 1998, Mr. Kiru was among those advising then-finance-minister Ernie Eves on the tax caps and clawbacks brought in to ease the transition for small businesses. He says any change now needs to include similar measures. <\/p>\n

Enid Slack, the director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the University of Toronto, said the current government will need to carefully study how to mitigate the potentially harmful side effects before turning the system back on. But she says the province must eventually return to current-value assessment to solve the problems the freeze has created. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople talk about the winners and losers from a reassessment,\u201d she said. \u201cBut they fail to remember that there are winners and losers from keeping it where it is.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ontario Liberal MPP Stephen Blais, his party\u2019s municipal affairs critic, said the government was right to freeze the system at the height of the pandemic, but wrong to have dragged its feet on restarting it \u2013 something he blames on the fear of political fallout. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government acknowledges it, then they\u2019ve got to start talking about taxes and at some point, taxes are going to go up on people,\u201d Mr. Blais said. \u201cAnd that would be counter to the Premier\u2019s argument that he\u2019s never raised taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Sullivan says the government could return to assessments but with a generous phase-in period, or even a 10-per-cent initial cap on any increases to smooth things over. But he warns that as his campaign reaches the many taxpayers he says are overpaying, pressure on the province will mount. <\/p>\n

He says he met Mr. Ford at a PC fundraiser in April and that the Premier pledged to sit down with him and Mr. Bethlenfalvy to talk taxes. But that the meeting hasn\u2019t happened yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, you have to unwind this,\u201d Mr. Sullivan said. \u201cSo how long do we treat people unfairly before we get to that point? And you want to talk about political risk? Keep dragging this thing out. Some people will say there\u2019s political risk in doing it. I want to say there\u2019s political risk in not doing it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Paul Sullivan, a B.C. property-tax consultant, is campaigning to lift Ontario\u2019s freeze on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-910344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}