Sault disputes real estate website's property tax rankings

A website that claims Saulites pay the third-highest property taxes in Ontario isn't looking at the whole picture, according to Malcolm White, the city's new chief administrative officer.

An article posted Thursday by the real estate website Zoocasa.com placed the Sault third out of 35 Ontario communities studied for its 2019 rankings of the province's highest residential property taxes.

With a property tax rate of 1.53 per cent, Saultites pay $3,823 a year on a home assessed at $250,000, $7,647 on a dwelling assessed at $500,000 and $15,293 on a property assessment of $1 million.

That compares to $1,537, $3.074 and $6,148 payable on comparable assessments in Toronto, which has the province's lowest property tax rate of 0.61 per cent.

"They're taking something that's part of a variable in an equation, that doesn't represent the entire picture of an issue," says White, who took over the Sault's chief administrative officer's position from Al Horsman on July 16.

"In determining the amount of property taxes paid by a taxpayer, the amount of the tax levy is determined by a tax rate times the assessment value," White told SooToday.

"So it would be no surprise that cities in northern Ontario such as Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, which have lower assessment values than municipalities in southern Ontario, would have higher tax rates than southern Ontario municipalities.

White compares this to buying a new municipal bus for $550,000.

"Whether I'm in Sault Ste. Marie or southern Ontario, we have to pay the same amount of dollars. But to raise that money through taxation, if I have low assessment base, I have to have a higher tax rate to raise that $550,000."

"If I have a higher value of assessment, then my tax rate can be lower to raise that same amount of money."

"Using their information, it's quite obvious that you get more home for your money in Sault Ste. Marie than almost anywhere else in Ontario," White said.

According to Zoocasa, the only municipalities with residential property tax rates higher than the Sault's are Thunder Bay (ranked 2nd at 1.60 per cent) and Windsor (1st at 1.78 per cent).

North Bay ranked 4th at 1.50 per cent and Sudbury was 5th at 1.46 per cent.

Average price for a home in Sault Ste. Marie is $188,598, compared to $915,481 in Toronto.