FAQs

The Municipal Act requires the Town of Whitby Mayor, as Head of Council, to prepare a proposed budget on or before February 1 of each year. 

On June 16, 2023, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced that the Town of Whitby would be one of 26 other municipalities granted “Strong Mayor Powers” (“SMP”) under the Municipal Act. These municipalities are in addition to the City of Toronto and The City of Ottawa, which have had SMP since the beginning of the 2022 to 2026 term of Council. The effective date for Whitby’s (and the other 25 other municipalities) was July 1, 2023. 

In 2024, the Town's first Strong Mayor's Budget was adopted. This multi-year budget covered 2025, 2026, and 2027.

I’m aware of recent media coverage indicating Whitby has the highest property tax rates in the GTA – however this information is not based on apples-to-apples comparisons. Whitby is middle of the pack among the lakeshore municipalities when it comes to property taxes. When ranking municipal property taxes, it’s important to use the same housing values to start and look at services provided and revenue sources available (where our money comes from).

Revenue Source Comparison:

For example, Ajax and Pickering have casinos, meaning their municipalities benefit from casino revenues, while the City of Toronto has a Land Transfer Tax as a revenue source. Whitby doesn’t have the benefit of either. To help offset impacts on taxpayers, we are working to implement our own revenue sources. One example is the new Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) approved earlier this year by Council. The MAT is charged to visitors to the Town and collected from Whitby hotels, motels, and other accommodations. The Town has also been applying for and receiving millions in federal and provincial grants to help fund Town capital projects.

Service Delivery Comparison:

Whitby is only one of two municipalities in Durham Region that provides its own waste collection service to residents. That means the Town’s budget is impacted by having to maintain equipment, materials, staffing, service contracts, and more.  

What This Means:

Despite not having casino revenues and offering more services, the Town of Whitby is still mid-range when it comes to property taxes within Durham.

Inflation tracks the cost of the same basket of goods over time and is just one of many factors that impact the Town’s budget. 

Whitby faces many complex budget challenges including aging infrastructure, the need to invest in Council-approved initiatives like the Whitby Sports Complex and a new fire hall and 20 new firefighters to support growth in West Whitby. Additionally, provincial policy changes and downloading also impacts the Town’s bottom line. For example, in recent years changes to Bill 23 saw the loss of over $5 million to-date in developer payments to the Town for the future purchase of parkland.  Data shows nearly a third of municipal spending now goes to services that are the Province’s jurisdiction, resulting in a funding gap of $4 billion annually across Ontario.

To mitigate the impact on property taxes, budget pressures are partially offset by:

• assessment growth - additional property taxes collected from new homes and businesses (e.g. “growth”);
• user fee increases – charging fees to those who benefit directly from a program or service (e.g. recreation programs) vs. recovering the incremental costs from all taxpayers; and
• identification of cost savings – finding efficiencies and reducing costs with minimal impact to municipal services or service levels.  Since 2013, $6.2 million of efficiencies have been identified and removed from the Town’s operating budget.

Residents pay property taxes to cover the cost of services provided by the Town of Whitby.

There are three tax rates on your property tax bill:

• The Municipal tax rate set by the Town of Whitby represents 34 per cent of the total property tax bill.
• The Regional tax rate set by the Regional Municipality of Durham represents 55 per cent of the total property tax bill. .
• The Education (or School Board) tax rate set by the Province of Ontario represents 11 per cent of the total property tax bill. 

The Town is responsible for collecting property taxes on behalf of the Region of Durham and the School Boards. 

Some of the Municipal services provided by the Town through taxes include snow clearing, road repair, fire and emergency services, parks maintenance, and libraries. The Region provides services like policing, ambulance, Regional road maintenance and repair, and transit, to name a few.  The last service provided by your property taxes is the school system support and the rates for this are approved by the Province.

Each budget year, the Town determines how much money is needed to maintain our services and provide any service enhancements. This total cost is divided by the total assessed value of all properties across Whitby. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) assesses all properties across Ontario. MPAC determines each property value and provides them to the Town each year.

Residential homes are assessed using the direct comparison approach, in other words, what similar homes are selling for in the area.  If you have purchased a newly built home you can use your purchase price to calculate an estimated tax levy until the property is fully assessed by MPAC.

Final municipal tax rates for the year are determined after Whitby Council and the Region of Durham approve their annual budgets, and the Province of Ontario establishes the education rate.

When there is a province-wide re-assessment that increases the overall assessment values in the Town, Whitby, like all municipalities in Ontario, will reduce the property tax rates in order to collect the same amount of property taxes as a starting point for the budget.  

Property owners with re-assessments at the average of the MPAC increases should not see a change in their property tax bills due to re-assessment.  While property owners with re-assessments that are lower than average or higher than the average re-assessment changes, should see a decrease or increase, respectively, to their tax bills due to province-wide re-assessments by MPAC. More information on how re-assessments work and the impact to taxes/tax rates is available in this video created by MPAC: