Anthony Furey: Now's the time to scrap Toronto's land transfer tax - National Post

Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford Photo by DAVE GORDON for National PostArticle contentShortly after becoming mayor of Toronto in 2010, Rob Ford tried to reduce the amount of the city’s municipal land transfer tax (LTT).

The much-loathed tax placed on the purchase of new homes within city limits had only come into effect a couple years earlier, introduced by then-mayor David Miller. It was a duplicate tax — replicating the Ontario provincial land transfer tax that buyers were already paying.

As a councillor, Ford was often one of the few advocates of fiscal sanity. He’d opposed the tax from Day 1 and, during his successful mayoral campaign, pledged to eliminate the whole darn thing.

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But, once in office, Ford was encouraged by those around him to temper his plans and only reduce the tax by 10 per cent. Even that proved too steep a hill to climb at city hall.

The bureaucracy and media did what they always did with Ford and went into attack mode, saying that such a cut to revenue — it would have meant a reduction of about $35 million — would harm the city coffers and Ford would need to account for how he’d make it up. Alas, the cut never came to be and the tax was normalized in the minds of home-buyers and voters.

Many years have passed since that policy battle, and we now hear regularly from politicians and bureaucrats concerned about the housing crisis and housing affordability. There has been a continual stream of press conferences, policy proposals and funding announcements about how to reduce the cost of housing.

Yet there has been little to no suggestion from Toronto city hall to implement the only cost reduction directly within the control of municipal government: reducing or eliminating the LTT. While reducing development charges can lower costs, this is an indirect lever because the builder pays them. The LTT, on the other hand, is paid directly by the buyer on closing.

The conversation is now back in the spotlight thanks to Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford, who has promised to eliminate the municipal LTT for many buyers if he’s elected.