{"id":26687,"date":"2020-06-04T18:36:18","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26687"},"modified":"2020-06-04T18:36:23","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:36:23","slug":"property-tax-penalties-will-be-waived-in-cases-of-financial-hardship-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/property-tax-penalties-will-be-waived-in-cases-of-financial-hardship-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Property tax penalties will be waived in cases of financial hardship: Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Property owners who are facing financial hardship due to\nthe COVID-19 pandemic will receive a break on property taxes at the discretion\nof the Town\u2019s Finance Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council confirmed a rate of 1.25 per cent for penalties\non past due tax accounts on May 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their decision also confirmed a direction made at the\nCommittee level earlier this month, giving the Town\u2019s Finance Department the\ndiscretion to waive these penalties if the property owner can prove their\nfinancial hardship, such as receiving emergency benefits from the Federal or\nProvincial governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As The Auroran reported last week, Council faced a staff\nrecommendation for a reduction in these penalties for all residential and\nbusiness property owners who were in arrears. But the Committee voted to keep\nthe status quo while allowing discretion on a case-by-case basis so property\nowners who were in the red before the COVID-19 outbreak and weren\u2019t paying\ntheir fair share wouldn\u2019t receive the same treatment as those who are\nstruggling due to fallout from the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, at last week\u2019s meeting, Councillor John\nGallo said a reduction of fees should be applied across the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stating his case, Councillor Gallo contended that as\nother York Region municipalities like Markham, Richmond Hill, and Newmarket had\nwaived penalties on taxes to the end of 2020, Aurora should follow suit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just find it awkward that\u2026 surrounding municipalities\nare doing something very different, but upper tier municipalities [like the\nRegion of York] are being a little more aggressive and you would hope that\nwould carry through to the residents of Aurora,\u201d he said, seeking assurances\nfrom staff that benefits from the upper tier levels of government flow through\nto the residents of Aurora if Council maintained the status quo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Town Treasurer Rachel Wainwright-Van Kessel replied that\nthe Region and School Board have provided some flexibility when it comes to\ncollecting taxes and, in turn, there are two ways Aurora can provide\nflexibility to its citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of them is through the penalties that we charge on\ntaxes and the other is through the dates that we normally have the final bills\ndue,\u201d she said. \u201cThis report actually recommends the deferral of those final\ndates. The final dates would normally be in July and September and we are\nproposing September 15 and December 1. That does provide some relief to\neveryone through Aurora while it mitigates\u2026us having that double payment to the\nschool board at the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we look at the Region, what they are doing is they are waiving penalties on their second and third installment [of taxes] through the end of the year and then the final one into next year. The School Board is still expecting to receive all their tax money within 2020. We have that payment in September and we have a double payment in December. Those were [considered] when we looked at the cash flow overall for the Town to make sure we had sufficient funds to make those payments on time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Michael Thompson said he shared some of the\nconcerns expressed by Councillor Gallo and asked whether there was any further\nthought on \u201cadjusting that penalty of 1.25 per cent or other measures\u201d that\nwould enable a degree of confidence to \u201censure that our residents don\u2019t lose\nout on those opportunities to mitigate some of the impacts being instituted by\nother levels of government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the ability to have the application process in\nplace for those impacted by COVID-19 that are finally impacted, we will be able\nto provide that flexibility to those residents or businesses to be able to\nwaive the penalties on taxes to make sure they get some additional\naccommodation throughout this process as well,\u201d said the Treasurer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Councillor Gallo held firm and was the lone Council\nmember to vote against maintaining the 1.25 per cent tax penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnder these circumstances and crazy times, it is obviously very difficult to find a happy ground to make everyone happy and help in any way we can\u2026.These are unique times and I would like to differ that if upper tier municipalities are given some benefits, it should trickle down and I would ask that the third point be voted on separately as I won\u2019t be supporting that 1.25 per cent,\u201d he said, just prior to the vote. \u201cI think we should be across the board, similar to Richmond Hill, Markham and Newmarket, in waiving those fees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Property owners who are facing financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic will receive a break on property taxes at the discretion of the Town\u2019s Finance Department. Council confirmed a rate of 1.25 per cent for penalties on past due tax accounts on May 26. Their decision also confirmed a direction made at the Committee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Wr","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 19:36:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}