Consider more levies than just road tolls, city staff report recommends

Highway tolls aren't the only revenue tool Toronto councillors will consider in the coming days and months when it comes to generating new money for the city.

A report from the city manager, deputy city manager and chief financial officer urges city council to look at several new measures to meet the city's short-term and long-term financial challenges, including the vehicle registration tax, an unpopular fee that was one of former mayor Rob Ford's first targets after he took office in 2010.

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 Mayor John Tory's executive committee is set to review the report at its Dec. 1 meeting.

City staff recommend a tax of up to $120 per year for each four-wheeled vehicle. When council voted to get rid of the tax back in 2011, it was set at $60 per vehicle, per year.

Given early reaction, the idea is unlikely to pass.

'As far as I'm concerned, it's dead,' Tory says

"I will fight and I will fight and I will fight to make sure that is not reintroduced. The people have spoken on that," Tory told reporters on Thursday.

Council voted down the $60 per vehicle fee in 2011.

"I have no intention of supporting it, I have no intention of re-introducing it," said Tory. "As far as I'm concerned, it's dead. And R.I.P."

Ford's nephew, Coun. Mike Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North), doesn't support bringing back the vehicle tax, either.

"No, absolutely not," said Ford, adding that drivers are already burdened with extra costs and will have to pay even more if the mayor's idea to bring in road tolls goes ahead.

Hotel tax

The staff report also recommends requesting that the provincial government implement a tax on hotel stays and other short-term rentals beginning in 2017. Tory spoke in support of that idea, which he said would include Airbnb stays.

Coun. Ana Bailao, a member of Tory's executive committee, supports that proposal, noting money has to be found somewhere if Torontonians want development in the city.

"It's not about, 'Do you want to pay more tax?' No one wants to pay more tax," said Bailao. "It's about, 'Do you want this project to be built and how do we build it?'"

Budget chief Gary Crawford will have a major role in deciding which taxes to bring in. He said he feels a hotel tax is doable. "We have to get some support from the province, but we should be able to implement that fairly reasonably," he said.

However, Crawford would not support a tax on alcohol sold at the LCBO, another recommendation from the city manager's report. He said implementing a so-called booze tax would be complicated and added the LCBO has no interest in partnering with the city to collect it.

Long-term recommendations

The report to the executive committee also makes four long-term recommendations to alleviate budget pressures for 2018 and beyond, all of which rely on requests to the province:

• Graduated residential property tax rates
• Parking sales tax
• Municipal income tax
• Sharing of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) with municipalities.

So far, Tory has said he does not support a parking tax. 

He also said he remains committed to keeping property tax rates at or below the rate of inflation, which he campaigned on in 2014.