Provincial group pushes for local farm tax relief

Ontario’s largest farm umbrella group wants a London-area county to reduce the share of the tax burden its farmers pay, arguing the soaring value of farmland is creating an unfair tax hit for producers.

And the pitch by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) isn’t being made to Middlesex County alone. The OFA has been asking counties across Southwestern Ontario’s farm belt to lower their tax ratios for farmers. The OFA is appealing to Middlesex to lower the tax ratio applied to farmland to 0.223 per cent from its current 0.25 per cent to help ease the financial fallout for farmers from rising property values. “Some farmers are seeing annual increases between 12 and 15 per cent in their property tax bills ... and that’s because the assessment of farmland, relative to residential (properties), is way out of whack,” said Ben Le Fort, a senior farm policy analyst with the OFA. According to the latest data from Farm Credit Canada, the value of farmland in Ontario has gone up each year since 2008. The biggest year-to-year increase came in 2012 when prices skyrocketed a whopping 30.1 per cent.

In 2017, farmland value went up in southwestern Ontario by 4.2 per cent, with some acres of land going for as much as $18,400. That would make a typical 100-acre parcel worth $1.84 million, or roughly $300,000 more than four years ago.

OFA will also be lobbying for similar reductions to the ratio in Elgin, Norfolk and Huron counties.

The group has already convinced four counties — Oxford, Lambton, Brant and Chatham-Kent — to lower their ratios. Perth decided to keep the status quo.

Le Fort said the average increase in taxable assessment for farmland in Middlesex — set by the Municipal Property Assessment Corp. — has gone up 10 times more than the average increase for residential properties.

This has led to taxes from farm properties covering an ever-growing portion of the county ’s total tax revenue.

“In 2018, the County of Middlesex collected a record level of taxes from farm properties,” Le Fort said. “So, basically, our request is to maintain the 2018 level of taxes and not set a new one in 2019.” One county politician, however, doesn’t think that lowering the ra- tio is that simple. Strathroy-Caradoc Mayor Joanne Vanderheyden, who sits on Middlesex County council, said changing the ratio would mean other property owners would feel the burden of the decision.

“I will listen with an open mind, but my fear always is that when you change the tax ratio for one category it has to be eaten up by someone else,” said Vanderheyden. “If we shifted it to someone, where do we shift it? That, to me, is a big problem.”

She also pointed out that while some farmers may be hurting from the increase in the value of their properties, those who are selling their land are benefiting from that same jump.

“The market is setting these prices, and it isn’t good for the farmers who don’t want to sell because their assessments are going up,” she said. “But it is good for the farmers that are selling because they are getting crazy dollars for their properties.”

The assessment of farmland, relative to residential (properties), is way out of whack.