Background on TPA's tax arrears
CommunityAIR's letter of March, 2011 to Mayor Ford and Information on TPA's tax arrears:
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
How the Port Authority’s Tax Arrears Add Up
The 2008 TPA financial statements (found at
http://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
http://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:
http://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
http://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.
To our knowledge, no new hearing before that Panel has been scheduled.
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
How the Port Authority’s Tax Arrears Add Up
The 2008 TPA financial statements (found at
http://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
http://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:
http://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
http://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.
To our knowledge, no new hearing before that Panel has been scheduled.
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