Mayor Ford: Stop the TPA's gravy train
Dear Mayor Ford:
With our City’s current serious financial challenges, we write to encourage you to apply your considerable talent for getting things done, to collect the money owing to the City for property taxes by the Toronto Port Authority.
By our calculations (see below), the amount owing is approximately $43 million, a very significant sum. Arrears have been accumulating since the TPA’s creation in 1999.
To the City’s credit, over many years, it has steadily and doggedly pursued the TPA through the labyrinthine PILTs appeal process within the Federal government, joining in a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada by the City of Montreal, and more recently, obtaining a victory the Federal Court of Canada (see below). The effect of these decisions is that the City is entitled to be paid property taxes by the TPA on the same basis as all other taxpayers.
It’s now time for you to let the TPA know that the gravy train it has been riding for so long is over – like every other property owner in our City, it must stop being a tax deadbeat and pay its fair share of taxes.
Yours truly,
Brian Iler
Chair, CommunityAir
How the Port Authority’s Tax Arrears Add Up
The 2008 TPA financial statements (found at www.torontoport.com/REPORTS/Finance_2008_ENG.PDF) reveal that property taxes claimed as owing by the TPA to the City for the years 1999 to 2008 were $39, 588,000 – an average of ~$4.5 million per year. To the end of 2010, then, that figure is ~$48 million.
Over the eleven years since the TPA was first imposed on the City, the TPA has paid the City a total of just $6,492,835, for all of its properties – prior to the November 2009 “macro” settlement between the TPA and the City, just $73,749 had been paid by TPA for the entire 1999-2009 period. See Report to City Council on the “macro” settlement at www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-25601.pdf
That leaves ~$41.5 million outstanding to the end of 2010.
Just for the 215-acre Island Airport lands, based on current property tax rates and MPAC’s valuation, the TPA should have been paying about $1.4 million per year to the City –- or $15,400,000 for the years since 1999.
At the same time, the City has an obligation, which, unlike the Port Authority, it is honouring, to pay a net of ~$2.6 million annual capital and operating payments to the TPA in 2010, 2011, & 2012 (see www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-25601.pdf)
The June 24, 2010 Federal Court of Canada Decision
The Federal Court of Canada decision is at decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/en/2010/2010fc687/2010fc687.html
It described the previous adverse decision of the Federal Disputes Advisory Panel on the amount of taxes the TPA should pay as follows:
The problematic areas are significant and multiple. They cover areas of jurisdiction, of law and of procedural fairness. They include a failure to appreciate the significance of evidence and they contain conclusions as to specific properties which are unreasonable:
The Federal Court of Canada decision referred the matter back – again – to the Federal Disputes Advisory Panel.
With our City’s current serious financial challenges, we write to encourage you to apply your considerable talent for getting things done, to collect the money owing to the City for property taxes by the Toronto Port Authority.
By our calculations (see below), the amount owing is approximately $43 million, a very significant sum. Arrears have been accumulating since the TPA’s creation in 1999.
To the City’s credit, over many years, it has steadily and doggedly pursued the TPA through the labyrinthine PILTs appeal process within the Federal government, joining in a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada by the City of Montreal, and more recently, obtaining a victory the Federal Court of Canada (see below). The effect of these decisions is that the City is entitled to be paid property taxes by the TPA on the same basis as all other taxpayers.
It’s now time for you to let the TPA know that the gravy train it has been riding for so long is over – like every other property owner in our City, it must stop being a tax deadbeat and pay its fair share of taxes.
Yours truly,
Brian Iler
Chair, CommunityAir
How the Port Authority’s Tax Arrears Add Up
The 2008 TPA financial statements (found at www.torontoport.com/REPORTS/Finance_2008_ENG.PDF) reveal that property taxes claimed as owing by the TPA to the City for the years 1999 to 2008 were $39, 588,000 – an average of ~$4.5 million per year. To the end of 2010, then, that figure is ~$48 million.
Over the eleven years since the TPA was first imposed on the City, the TPA has paid the City a total of just $6,492,835, for all of its properties – prior to the November 2009 “macro” settlement between the TPA and the City, just $73,749 had been paid by TPA for the entire 1999-2009 period. See Report to City Council on the “macro” settlement at www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-25601.pdf
That leaves ~$41.5 million outstanding to the end of 2010.
Just for the 215-acre Island Airport lands, based on current property tax rates and MPAC’s valuation, the TPA should have been paying about $1.4 million per year to the City –- or $15,400,000 for the years since 1999.
At the same time, the City has an obligation, which, unlike the Port Authority, it is honouring, to pay a net of ~$2.6 million annual capital and operating payments to the TPA in 2010, 2011, & 2012 (see www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-25601.pdf)
The June 24, 2010 Federal Court of Canada Decision
The Federal Court of Canada decision is at decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/en/2010/2010fc687/2010fc687.html
It described the previous adverse decision of the Federal Disputes Advisory Panel on the amount of taxes the TPA should pay as follows:
The problematic areas are significant and multiple. They cover areas of jurisdiction, of law and of procedural fairness. They include a failure to appreciate the significance of evidence and they contain conclusions as to specific properties which are unreasonable:
The Federal Court of Canada decision referred the matter back – again – to the Federal Disputes Advisory Panel.
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