Comment 33822

By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted September 17, 2009 at 16:07:05

Highwater >> Tax rates only matter to people who plan to pay their taxes.

I agree that it's not right to reward people who can't pay their obligations, but it's much easier to pay taxes when you have tenants. The reason there are no tenants, is because our politicians have forgot that people work on incentives. Keep investment tax rates high and people will invest elsewhere, that's just the reality.

On that point, if the citizens of Hamilton want our politicians to turn this city into the best community in Canada, what do we offer them in return? Where is their incentive to do a great job?

I have mentioned this previously, but what would be wrong with linking their compensation to a metric that reflects how the overall city is doing. For example, if average property values in the city grew faster than the provincial average, they would get a bonus linked to that.

In this way, our elected officials would benefit proportionately to the gains they produced for homeowners. Furthermore, if we know that money will always influence political decisions, why not leverage that fact to our advantage, rather than pretend politicians are immune from acting in their own self interest.

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