Burlington mayor addresses concerns over increase in property taxes

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Published June 21, 2021 at 4:28 pm

Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward recently addressed some concerns over the recent increase in property taxes.

“We know residents are now receiving their tax bills and may have some questions of where their tax dollars go and why they’ve gone up,” said Meed Ward in a statement.

According to the mayor, there are two components that can cause a potential increase to a property bill.

One of these components include changes due to increase in market value, which the mayor clarified are set by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) and not the City of Burlington.

“We have no control over these assessments and related increases. You can appeal the increase in your property value to MPAC, and seek a reduction in the associated taxes as a result of this increase,” she said.

The other component is the tax rate increase. The mayor went on to explain that tax bills are made up of three sources; city, region and education taxes and confirmed that taxes increased for both city and region this year.

“The City’s portion of the overall 2021 residential tax bill is 45.4 cents of every tax dollar and the remaining 54.6 cents goes to Halton Region and the Province of Ontario for education taxes,” said Meed Ward.

Paula Chung, Lead, Media Relations and Issues Management for the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation clarified the mayor’s statement and explained to inhalton.com that the Ontario government postponed the planned province-wide assessment update due to the pandemic.

“As a result, property assessments for the 2021 and 2022 property tax years continue to be based on January 1, 2016 current values. This means your property assessment remains the same as it was for the 2020 tax year unless there have been changes to your property,” concluded Chung.

Residents interested in learning more about property taxes are encouraged to review the capital budget book or the operating budget book here.

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