Toronto, like many Canadian cities, faces a growing number of challenges — changing demographics, increased income inequality, increasingly complex expenditure demands, growing social service needs, and deteriorating infrastructure, to name the most notable. At the same time, the city’s revenue sources have remained largely unchanged — property taxes, user charges, the land transfer tax, occasional provincial and federal grants for infrastructure projects, and a hodgepodge of relatively small revenue sources including licences, permits and fees.
This growing divergence between expenditure needs and revenue sources means the services and infrastructure that residents are demanding from their local government cannot be delivered with existing revenues. Yet, all too often, the only solution we hear is budget cuts across the board.
Source: It’s time for big cities like Toronto to get new taxes | Toronto Star
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