Property reassessment leads to tax hike

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

© AgMedia Inc.

by SUSAN MANN

Retired tool designer Udo Muller opened his 2008 property assessment notice early this year only to find some shocking details that’ll mean he may have to pay dramatically more taxes.

Muller, who isn’t a farmer and doesn’t live in the farm house on the 97-acre property he owns in Oxford County’s Zorra Township, found his property was valued at $366,000 as of Jan. 1, 2008 compared to $320,000 on Jan. 1, 2005, a difference of $46,000. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, which classifies and assesses properties in the province, had reclassified most of his property as residential. The majority of the property, which he rents to a neighbouring farmer to grow cash crops, had previously been classified as agricultural.

“The $45,000 became now $238,200,” says Muller, referring to the 2005 and 2008 values assigned to the property’s residential segment.

Zorra Township tax collector Kelly Hall says Muller was the only property owner in the township who had their property reclassified in this way. “Nobody else was affected by that.”

The Corporation told Hall in an email that if their records didn’t show the property owner as the person actually farming the land or living in the farmhouse, they reevaluated the property. “As a result the property valuation increased somewhat dramatically,” the email states.

Larry Hummel, a spokesman for the Corporation, says the Corporation may “assess a property as a farm but it is taxed at the residential rate unless it’s placed in the farm property tax class” by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).

A fact sheet on OMAFRA’s web site states that farm properties have to meet five eligibility requirements to be in the farm property tax class where taxes are 25 per cent of the municipal residential rate.

Municipalities use the assessments to determine the amount of taxes property owners pay. Hall says Muller’s taxes will increase this year by $200 over what he paid in 2008 because of the reclassification.

Can this same type of reclassification happen to farmers? Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Mark Wales says it wouldn’t if the farmer lives on the farm and either works the land or rents it to someone who does.

The Federation’s main concern is the reclassification of farms being used for value-added businesses as commercial or industrial. “If you get hit with commercial that’s about a six-fold increase in tax and assessment costs,” Wales says. “If you get hit with industrial, it’s often times a ten-fold increase.”

In 2003, several farm groups, OMAFRA and the Corporation met to work out a definition of primary agriculture “to clear all those up,” Wales says. Discussions continue with the province’s finance minister. 

Hummel says Muller could have his assessment reviewed by contacting the Corporation and “asking for a review.” There’s no charge for an administrative review but requests have to be filed before March 31.

Muller says he did apply for a review but it could be the fall or later before the reconsideration is dealt with. In the meantime a four-year phase-in of the new assessments begins in August.

Updated assessments were mailed to all property owners in November. 

Government critics said they were unrealistic given the drop in housing prices but Premier Dalton McGuinty opted not to ask the Corporation to issue new assessments.

Details on property tax assessments are available at the Corporation’s website.  BF