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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

7 comments

  1. Budget budget budget!

    I’m wondering if someone can help fill me in… there’s a pie chart on the front page of the Star today called “Where the money comes from”, with $1.2 billion falling under “other revenues”. Anyone have a sense of what those other revenues are? Just wondering. Thanks.

  2. It’s interesting to me that the Heart and Stroke Foundation attributes the annual death of 6000 Canadians to air pollution, including the fine particulate matter pumped out by automobiles.

    Yet looking at the prizes for this year’s Heart & Stroke Lottery, I see a huge number of polluters, including: a vast array of SUVs and other automobiles, jet-setting vacations, and massive monster homes. Also some nice electronic gadgets to help promote sedentary lifestyles even more. After all of their prizes are doled out, I think we can expect the number of annual deaths to climb!

  3. Leah, “Other” includes:
    Rental of Properties
    Interest Income
    Investment Income
    Donations
    Sale of Recycled Materials
    Sale of Other Materials
    Insurance Loss Recoveries
    Tax Registration Certificates
    Land Transfer Tax ($0.18B)

    Source: City of Toronto

  4. Doesn’t that make the land transfer tax counted twice? (The Star, at least, says it goes in the “new taxes” slice.) Hopefully the confusion is just in the charts, not in the actual budget.

  5. Matt L: It shows the same way in the City’s chart that I linked to in my last comment. I have no idea how the taxes were accounted for and why the LTT wouldn’t show under New Taxation.

  6. Leah,

    The other revenues include things like money collected from parking, permits, fines and admissions (think zoo).

    What should also be noted is that of the 3.3 billion in property tax collected only about 1.35 billion (41%) is from residential property tax. The balance of nearly 2 billion is paid for by the non-residential sector. This, even though the non-residential sector comprises of only about 28% of the assessment base.

  7. I wish a detailed breakdown was available, how did the city get these figures for spending?I know they can throw dollars around in the millions but a round figure tells me nothing except that the money is gone.It reminds me of the trinity gates project that cost $500,000 and yet no breakdown.They repaired some stone put in a new gate a few flowers and voila we are out half a million.Just doesn’t seem right to blow our money when there are real needs in the city.Why the tree budget is cut up into so many tiny bits its hard to understand how the urban forest can cost so much for so little.