Only Taxes On The Building

Let's work on a detective mystery for the ages. Where do Halifax's taxes come from... geographically... and where do they go?

Frosty and me in Musquodoboit Harbour chasing leads and working out the math on a big new money mystery blog post.

Picture it: Halifax, the land of the perpetual drizzle and fog… but at least the weather is nice, where the only thing murkier than our worries is the question of where our taxes go. Yep, we’re talking about the case of the disappearing dollars—a mystery that’s haunted our beloved HRM for years.

Back in the early 2000s, when flip phones were high-tech and people still debated whether Y2K would turn their microwaves into Terminators, the HRM assembled a crack team. Think Ocean's Eleven, but with less charm, ill-fitting suits, and more spreadsheets. Their mission? To reform property taxes across the region. Simple, right? Just follow the money, rearrange a few numbers, and voilà—a tax system that doesn’t make you want to scream into a pillow.

It was not-so-quietly abandoned in 2007 in chaos when many rural residents began to ask one uncomfortable question… where do the city’s property taxes come from and where do they go?

Simply and fairly, residents wanted to know what they were getting back for their taxes. It seemed like a simple enough calculation and a reasonable question. Especially if the goal was… you know…tax reform.

Andrew Younger, one of the tax reform commissioners at the time, says the data is there, and so were options. But nobody, including the people and the provincial government, liked the direction things were going.

With the arrival of Mayor Savage there was one mission… bury this… and everything else that got those pesky kids snooping around and asking questions.

Now, 20 years after the project was conceived, I’m taking on the challenge: to collect enough information from available data and city personnel sources past and present to present a reasonable map showing everyone in the amalgamated region where the taxes come from and where they go.

It’s going to take some work but it’s a great detective mystery. Not “Only Murders In The Building” but an accounting of how many buildings there are now today, what they pay in taxes, and where that money goes.

So far I can tell you… it’s unpleasant, unbalanced, and unsustainable.

Any guesses on how it’s gonna turn out? Want to help with the math and research? Send me a note. It’s not just about solving the mystery; it’s about making sure we’re all getting what we pay for. And if we’re not?

Well, let’s just say there’s an election coming up and this mystery’s about to get a lot more interesting—grab the popcorn.