By: Phil Froats

Property taxes can vary significantly between communities. The Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing publishes a wealth of community financial data on it’s Financial Information Return website. There you will find the property and education tax rates for over 400 communities and townships in the province. Considering that property taxes are an expense you can’t control, it is worth checking out these rates if you are considering a move.

The table below shows 47 Ontario cities from the Moneysense magazine’s  Best Places to Live feature and applies the 2007 tax rate (the latest available) to the average house price as shown in the magazine to arrive at average property taxes for each community. It is sorted from highest to lowest total taxes. If want to move to a smaller community, taking the proceeds of your house sale to upgrade in your new location can result in a tax shock. The proceeds of $387,482 from the sale of an average Toronto house spent on a Peterborough dwelling would result in taxes of around $5,700 a year, about $2,400 more than you were paying. Getting out of Ottawa and spending the proceeds in Windsor would cost you a little over $2,500 a year in extra taxes.