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24 Tax Memo 1 (1960)

handle is hein.journals/taxmmo24 and id is 1 raw text is: 







TAX


No.24


MEMO


October,  1960


      What is the Weight of Local Taxation on

Business? - A Comparison in 14 Canadian Cities


   In the majority of Canadian cities the
owners and occupants of business properties
are subject to two forms of local property
taxation:-
   (1) the owners of all industrial and com-
mercial properties pay the usual taxes that
are imposed on all types of real property
whether of a residential, farm or business
nature; and
   (2) all occupiers of real property who
are engaged in any form of business activity
in addition pay a business tax.

   In some municipalities a business is also
subject to a miscellaneous assortment of
minor taxes, licences or fees and in others a
tax is also levied on personal property. In
most Canadian urban centres, therefore, the
owners and occupiers of business properties
are taxed more heavily than the owners and
occupiers of other types of real property.
But this situation is not always achieved by
levying different forms of taxation. Some-
times as in all Ontario municipalities and in
the City of Halifax a contributing factor is
that business properties are subject to a
higher rate of real property taxation than is
levied on other real property.


   Revenues from  most sources are sepa-
rately recorded by the larger municipalities
but only a few analyze them to determine
the proportion paid by the different types
of taxpayer  in  the municipality, e.g.,
industrial, commercial, farm or residential.
Lacking this basic information an appraisal
of the weight  of the real property tax
and  other individual taxes on business is
most difficult to make. And for the same
reason a meaningful  comparison  of the
total weight of all taxation paid by business
in one  municipality  with that paid in
another, particularly when the two munici-
palities are in different provinces, is a chal-
lenging calculation.

   During the past few months the Founda-
tion has been attempting to make this calcu-
lation by studying the incidence of taxation
on business in 14 cities across Canada. To
pretend that,the Foundation has found a full
and proper answer to the vexing question of
how  to compare the weight of taxation in
different municipalities would be presump-
tuous. What  we believe we have done is to
provide a few guides for those who wish to
delve  more  deeply into this extremely
interesting and at times rather complicated
exercise.


Additional copies Of this pamplet are available at 15 cents per coPY.

DIAN          TAX         FOUND2


CA NA


ATION

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