Quote:
Originally Posted by drpgq
I'm sorry but this post is just dissembling.
We've had this argument about property taxes and apartments before on the Hamilton Skyscraper Forum before.
Sure as a tenant you don't pay property taxes directly. However by that logic you as a consumer don't pay the HST either then. The retailer could chose not to remit the HST portion of the purchase if they felt like it, with negative consequents if they didn't, just like if a landlord decided not to pay his/her property taxes. Property taxes for apartments exist and their rates have economic effects no matter how they are collected.
With regards to your arguments of why the rates are higher for apartments, that's not the reason they're higher. The reason they are higher is that homeowners vote and apartment owners don't, so the city in the past cranked up the apartment rate to keep single unit housing rates low. Also the rate isn't a little higher for apartment buildings, it is a lot higher.
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I'm not trying to hide anything here, so I'm not sure what you're getting at by calling this post "dissembling". Nor do I understand why you would apologize for it, if you in actuality think it to be true. That is just a bizarre thing to type.
Perhaps this has been discussed before, but I'm not about to search all past topics to see if it has or not. Sorry for bringing it up.
I might have read the initial post in a different way, but I saw it as someone stating that they directly pay property taxes, and I wanted to help clear it up. Which the they are not directly charged property taxes.
And the statement that apartment owners don't vote is strange; why would they not vote? And so by not voting, the city just decides to increase their rates? But they don't bother using the fact that buildings, buy their nature, use more city-funded resources, like the ones I listed? That doesn't make any sense... I could be wrong, but it seems illogical. I thought this was common knowledge, but then again, I could be wrong.
Perhaps my use of the words "increase the rate a little" was out of line; I should have said 2.5 times as high. I'll make sure to word things much more precisely from now on when posting here.