June 10, 2014
New research released by the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) says the city’s Municipal Land Transfer Tax is causing a ‘massive loss of economic activity in the City of Toronto and a corresponding loss of thousands of jobs.”
The report conducted by Altus Group Economic Consulting, says the economic losses incurred by the City of Toronto between 2008 and 2013 included a loss of 38,278 resale home transactions, a loss of $2.3 billion in economic activity, a reduction of $1.2 billion in GDP, a loss of 14,934 full-time jobs and a loss of $772 million in wages in salaries. This is a huge price to pay for an additional $300 million in municipal tax revenue.
The full article can be found at http://www.donttaxmydream.ca/
Last year I wrote a research paper on the effects of the Toronto Land Transfer Tax (LTT) on the municpality for my Urban Studies course at the University of Toronto. If you would like to read up on the history of the Toronto LTT and how other countries have fared with similar taxes, the research paper can be found here: Implications of the Toronto LTT.
