In Lévis, the application of the new taxation on vacant land is causing discontent among owners, many of whom have seen their tax bill double in one year. In an open letter, a man denounces an “extortion” maneuver on the part of the municipality.
When reading his 2024 tax notice, Bernard Côté first believed in an error: the tax burden of the land of approximately 650 m2 which neighbors his residence went from $3,482 in 2023 to $7,285 this year. In 2022, this same land cost him $1,750 annually: this is an increase of 316% in two years which seems “dizzying” to the owner of Lévis.
“This is what I call legalized extortion,” he denounces. Bernard Côté must pay $1,527 more for his wooded land, estimated at $235,500, than for his main residence, which is nevertheless worth $637,000, according to the City’s assessment role.
It is “nonsense”, “an aberration”, in the eyes of someone who has lived and paid taxes in Lévis for almost 40 years.
A new power of taxation
This significant increase follows the City’s decision to take advantage of a new taxation power granted to municipalities at the end of 2023. The revision of the municipal tax system, sanctioned on December 8, now authorizes cities to “increase the maximum rate that can be set with regard to the category of vacant land served”.
The measure aims to encourage the development of vacant land at a time of a major housing crisis. Two cities have decided to use the provision: Terrebonne and Lévis.
The second quadrupled the basic rate applicable to property taxes on vacant land, increasing it from $0.76 to $3.05. The measure results in significant increases in the tax burden – and in a wave of anger among owners subject to the new tax.
“It affects 11,000 plots of land,” recalls the elected representative of the opposition party Repensons Lévis, Serge Bonin. Even if he considers that the measure is justified in industrial zones, where demand exceeds the supply of land, it does not apply well to a “wall to wall application”.
“When it affects individuals in sectors not conducive to development, it looks like a measure that the City is imposing,” believes Serge Bonin, “to avoid an even higher generalized tax increase by placing the tax burden on the shoulders of a few. some. »
In its last budget, Lévis announced that the new tax applicable to vacant land would represent an additional $11.5 million in its coffers. However, the opposition to the Town Hall calls into question its necessity: why brandish this incentive for development when the administration of Gilles Lehouillier puffs out its chest in the face of construction records that are constantly shattered year after year?
“We don’t need to accelerate development; on the contrary, we must control it,” believes the elected official from Repensons Lévis, who reports that it is sometimes the City itself which is unable to respond to demand. “Some developers tell us that it is the City that is slowing down development. They are ready to build, but it is the delays in connecting the sewers and the aqueduct which are postponing the start of construction. »
“I don’t really have a choice”
Bernard Côté believes that Lévis could have shown more restraint with this new power of taxation. “It’s not because a car can go up to 200 km/h that you have to push the engine up to 200 km/h,” he illustrates. For the moment, the Lévisien intends to pay his new tax notice, which imposes a monthly payment of $607.
“I don’t really have a choice,” he laments. The other solution would be to sell his land, but he refuses to give up the green space that has adjoined his house for around thirty years.
“It seems to me that it is up to me to decide when I will sell my property, without being pressured by the City,” he concludes. We are not in a socialist country where it is the government which requisitions land according to its own needs. »
The duty tried to contact the municipal administration in place in Lévis on Tuesday morning, without obtaining a response.