Business View Magazine | March 2020

255 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 A CHANGING MUNICIPAL IN THE LAND OF THE LIVIN M unicipalities have always worked in a challenging landscape. They are the government closest to the people—the most directly accessible and accountable to their rate payers. They also provide services that most of us use every day, such as: water, wastewater, solid waste services and recycling, recreation, and roads. And yet, despite owning more than sixty percent of the infrastructure in our country, municipalities collect only eight cents of every tax dollar collected in Canada. Municipalities collect so small a proportion of tax revenue because of the few collection tools they have at their disposal. The primary way municipalities collect revenue is through taxes on property. Property taxes are one of the oldest forms of taxation, and they make a lot of sense, when you consider that many of the services municipalities provide are done on a per- household basis. The difficulty is that property taxes don’t fully take into account the ability