{"id":6886,"date":"2010-05-05T23:50:33","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T04:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=6886"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:42:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:42:15","slug":"reflections-after-tax-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2010\/05\/05\/reflections-after-tax-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections after Tax Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2568\/4105756012_db89e4be50.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2568\/4105756012_db89e4be50.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So I did my taxes last month and, seemingly for the first time, I took note of the slip of paper from  the landlord indicating how much he paid in municipal taxes on our  apartment.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose I have pretty high expectations of my municipal government but, having always been renter, I&#8217;ve rarely thought about the financial support that we city-dwellers provide. Without going into the nitty gritty of my personal finances, here&#8217;s what it boiled down to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My share of municipal taxes represented about 1.5 months of my rent.<\/li>\n<li>The amount of federal income tax I paid was equivalent to a bit more than 5 months of rent.<\/li>\n<li>The amount of provincial income tax I paid was equivalent to 11 months of rent (including drug insurance, after deductions for past tuition).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Note: When I refer to my rent, I mean my portion of the rent of a reasonably-priced apartment in a triplex in NDG that I share with 2 roommates.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To be honest, my library card alone is probably worth about a fifth of  what I contributed to the city last year, to say nothing of snow removal, garbage  and recycling pickup, water purification and sewage treatment, cycling  infrastructure, transit subsidy (fares only cover about 55% of the STM&#8217;s  costs), pools, parks, festivals and more.<\/p>\n<p>Another way to look at it is that 8% of the taxes I paid went to the municipal government, 63% to provincial and 29% to federal. And that&#8217;s before you factor in the GST and QST.<\/p>\n<p>This is actually exactly what the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fcm.ca\/english\/View.asp?mp=960&amp;x=966\">Federation of Canadian Municipalities reported in 2008<\/a>: only 8 cents of every tax dollar made it to municipal government. During the last federal election, the FCM called on the federal parties to re-examine this balance sheet, which was drafted back when the vast majority of the country&#8217;s population lived in rural areas. Today 80% of Canadians live in metropolitan areas and cities are floundering to meet the needs for infrastructure, transit, affordable housing, public security and environmental protection.<\/p>\n<p>But as far as the Conservatives are concerned, <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/10\/08\/the-big-city-vote-the-conservatives\/\">cities are just not their problem<\/a>. And they have a point: municipal funding has traditionally fallen under provincial jurisdiction. Yet projects like the Turcot interchange make me think that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyberpresse.ca\/chroniqueurs\/michele-ouimet\/201005\/05\/01-4277225-et-si-quebec-ecoutait-montreal.php\">the city is invisible to the provincial government<\/a>: the design they came up with may as well be in the middle of a field rather than a stone&#8217;s throw from tens of thousands of homes.<\/p>\n<p>I am not the kind of person who complains about taxes. I am all for paying   taxes   and then taking full advantage of all those wonderful things they afford us like     free health care, extremely affordable education, arts and culture     funding, public transit etc. I have different levels of government to thank for each of those.<\/p>\n<p>But I wonder, does it make sense that the city provides only 8% of the value of public     services that I enjoy? And with so little funding from citizens, is it any wonder that the city is quick to compromise for anyone who promises profitable development? Do I want the majority of my taxes to be used by a government who thinks the city I live in is &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lucferrandez.com\/turcot-same-old-same-old\">mostly for students and immigrants,<\/a>&#8221; as if that makes it unworthy of careful planning and investment?<\/p>\n<p>Also, I clearly don&#8217;t know much about finances, so if any readers have an informed opinion or good sources about this, please share.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/alancleaver\">alan cleaver_2000<\/a> under creative commons licence<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I did my taxes last month and, seemingly for the first time, I took note of the slip of paper from the landlord indicating how much he paid in municipal taxes on our apartment. I suppose I have pretty high expectations of my municipal government but, having always been renter, I&#8217;ve rarely thought about<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2010\/05\/05\/reflections-after-tax-time\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Reflections after Tax Time&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7841],"tags":[303,5221,3057,2840,406,1951,68],"class_list":["post-6886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-services","tag-cent","tag-drug-insurance","tag-federation-of-canadian-municipalities","tag-municipal-government","tag-provincial-government","tag-public-services-2","tag-public-services"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reflections after Tax Time - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2010\/05\/05\/reflections-after-tax-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reflections after Tax Time - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So I did my taxes last month and, seemingly for the first time, I took note of the slip of paper from the landlord indicating how much he paid in municipal taxes on our apartment. 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