City hall blunders sparked home tax 'fiasco'
Toronto Star|August 05, 2024
Internal emails show scramble that led to property owners being billed unfairly
BEN SPURR

Despite clear signs behind the scenes that Toronto’s vacant home tax had been going off the rails for months, the city’s chief financial officer didn’t get crucial data about its low response rates until two days before the program deadline.

The CFO took action to boost uptake of the program, but a key measure that could have helped was rejected by a senior director, who appeared to blame the low response rate on homeowners who didn’t “follow the rules.”

The details about the messy rollout of the tax were revealed in emails obtained by the Star through a freedom-of-information request. They provide the clearest picture yet of the bureaucratic foul-up that resulted in upwards of 150,000 homeowners being hit with bills they shouldn’t have this spring.

The 1,200 pages of emails exchanged by senior staff indicate that CFO Stephen Conforti, whose office oversees the city’s revenue services division, didn’t learn until Feb. 27 that only about half the city’s 816,000 homeowners had submitted occupancy information for the tax program. The deadline for residents to submit the information and avoid a hefty bill was Feb. 29.

He set off a last-minute scramble to extend the deadline and improve compliance, an effort that had some success but ultimately fell short. In the weeks that followed, thousands of frustrated and angry homeowners flooded city hall with complaints, and were forced to wait in line at civic buildings to try to get their bills overturned.

It’s a situation Coun. Josh Matlow (Ward 12, Toronto—St. Paul’s), who supports the idea behind the tax, called “an absolute fiasco” that was “entirely bungled and mismanaged by the city staff” — one that caused residents unnecessary anxiety, undermined public confidence in a policy intended to boost housing supply, and cost city staff and councillors untold hours to try to sort out.

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