Dear editor:

In your April 27 editorial (“Unfair taxation puts hotels at disadvantage”), you reported that the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake is foregoing $600,000 by not applying the municipal accommodation tax to all short-term rentals and you also noted that rentals don’t pay commercial realty tax.

Based on an assumption that the commercial realty tax rate can be two or three times that of the residential rate, the town could be losing $1.5 million to $3 million per year (based on a house with residential realty tax of $5,000 and there being more than 320 short-term rentals).

Add this to the $600,000 million not collected from the accommodation tax.

Does this not amount to a subsidy to non-owner occupied short-term rentals that the rest of the taxpayers have to make up?

The town’s recent budget discussions highlighted the need for more revenue yet council chose to instead make residents pay a tax increase of more than 8 per cent rather than tax commercial short-term rentals.

And fairness.

Why should other small businesses in NOTL be forced to pay commercial rates for realty tax that non-owner occupied short-term rentals don’t have to pay?

The town strives to be seen as being fair, so why not treat non-owner operated rental businesses on the same basis as other tax-paying businesses?

Why would the town open itself up to potential legal action as noted in your editorial?

Brian Crow
NOTL