Impose municipal income tax on commuters

Re Dealing cities a stronger hand Opinion, Sept. 30.

I read Casey G. Vander Ploeg’s opinion with great interest. I couldn’t agree more with his statement: “With more and more residents filling the beltways around our city regions, big cities find themselves having to provide services and infrastructure to a growing population who pay their residential property taxes elsewhere.”

Every day thousands of workers from the “ 905” areas commute into Toronto to their jobs. They travel on roads that are paved, cleaned, plowed and policed by the city of Toronto whose revenue comes from property- owning taxpayers. Some journey on the TTC that is subsidized by these same taxpayers. They make use of municipal water and sewage services. They contribute to the city’s garbage piles. But do they contribute to the cost of all this infrastructure and services? Unfortunately no. Plus, to add insult to injury, at the end of the week they take their paycheques that were earned in Toronto out of the city to spend in other communities. Meanwhile it is the Toronto home and business owners who are left to foot the bill.

Is there a solution that would help reduce the ever- increasing property taxes? I think so. If the province enabled the city to impose a municipal income tax. Just for fun, let’s say there are approximately 1 million wage earners in the city, both resident and non- resident. And let’s say that the average worker earns $ 40,000 per year. A flat tax of only one- quarter of 1 per cent would cost each worker an average of $100 per year but would generate new tax revenue of $100 million annually. Plus, the out- of- town commuters would now be helping to support the payment of the services they presently enjoy for free. Terry Burke, Oakville