Concerned Owen Sound Taxpayers

The Impact of High Taxes

Owen Sound, like all municipalities, is a business in the service sector with a mandate to provide the services demanded by its customers (the taxpayers) and at a competitive price (taxes) that its customers accept. Failure to provide the types of services desired by its customers, or increase prices to beyond an acceptable level, will result in Owen Sound's customers taking their business elsewhere. In other words people will just move out of town when taxes make housing and rents too much of a burden on its residents. Does this sound familiar?

A Case in Point:

Bill and Joan Graham were married in 1969 at St Mary's Church. In 1970 they purchased a house for $42,000 on the West Hill. Bill worked for Kennedy's machine Shop and Foundry until it was closed in 1996. Joan worked at Mackay Brothers until it closed in 1989. They both worked at part-time jobs after their employers closed. They managed to pay off their mortgage and lived mortgage free managing on their small pensions and their part-time jobs. In 2019 Bill passed away leaving Joan to managing on her pension alone and her part-time job at Walmart. The home that they bought together is now assessed at $400,000 and Joan is finding that the $480 monthly tax payment is causing her to cut back on essentials. She is determined to stay in her home and live independently for as long as she can. She recently discovered that if she were to move just a few blocks away to Georgian Bluffs she could save $250 per month in property taxes. So she is seriously considering selling her Owen Sound home, a home that she raised her children, and using the proceeds to purchase a smaller home in Georgian Bluffs. Can You Blame Her?

The inability for successive Owen Sound councils to exercise fiscal restraint and ensure that Owen Sound taxes were on a par with our surrounding municipalities are totally responsible for Joan's dilemma.

Shrinking Population of Wage Earners - source: Statistic Canada

One of the hidden impacts of the excessive growth in taxes that Owen Sound has experienced over the last twenty years is that people have been moving away to avoid big property taxes or unaffordable rents. The population of those filing income tax on wages between 2017 and 2020 grew by 5.51% in Collingwood and shrank by 2.13% in Owen Sound. In all likelihood, wage earners are just moving across municipal boundaries to reduce one of the growing strains on their family finances – high Owen Sound Taxes. After all they can continue to enjoy everything that Owen Sound has to offer while living in Georgian Bluffs or just East of 28th avenue in Meaford. They can continue to do all of this and reap the benefits of much lower taxes that Georgian Bluffs and Meaford has to offer. We can see this when we look at the change in those filing income taxes between 2012 and 2020 as shown in graph above. No question about it, we are losing our wage earners. Where are they going? There are really only two possibilities. Wage earners are either retiring from the workforce or they are moving to other communities. Most are likely just moving across municipal boundaries to Georgian Bluffs and Meaford. We can verify this by looking at the relative changes in population over the past 20 years for Owen Sound, Meaford and Georgian Bluffs as shown in the next graph.

Shrinking Population Over a 20 Year Period - source: Statistic Canada

The above graph shows the percentage growth of the three municipalities over a twenty year period. We see that Meaford grew the most at 10.63% followed by Georgian Bluffs which grew by 9.61%. Then we have Owen Sound, which grew less than one percent during this 20 year period from 2001 to 2021. Although this looks like Owen Sound is actually growing, albeit slowly, it really isn 't.

The 2018 BMA Municipal Study looked at 108 municipalities in Ontario. Of these Owen Sound ranks as 103 – pretty much leading the pack when it comes to high taxes. There are only five municipalities that are taxed higher. Four of them are in the far north Timmins, Espanola, Elliot Lake and Greenstone. These northern communities have unique challenges that Owen Sound doesn 't face.

So what does this mean for taxpayers? Well, if we looked at picking up our house and just moving it across municipal boundaries you would get a 22% tax rebate if you moved it east of 28th Ave to the Town of Meaford. Taxes in Meaford are only 78.4% of what they are in Owen Sound. For example if your property taxes are $5,000 per year in Owen Sound you only pay $3,920 in Meaford, so you would have an extra $1,080 to spend on something other than taxes each year. Savings are even better if you were to move your house to Saugeen Shores where taxes are only 61.1% of those in Owen Sound. Therefore you would get a savings of about $2,000 a year if you lived in Saugeen Shores.

Comparison of Average Household Income in 2021 - source: 2021 BMA Study

The graph above is developed from data provided in the 2021BMA Study and shows exactly where Owen Sound stands when it comes to Average Household income. Do you wonder why Owen Sound 's Average Household income is so much lower than others in Grey-Bruce? I believe that high taxes play a significant role in keeping wages down. This combined with the fact that people are moving out of Owen Sound and that Owen Sound has had little growth over the last 20 years also suggests that high taxes is a major factor.