{"id":1440,"date":"2013-01-27T16:18:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T21:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/?p=1440"},"modified":"2013-01-27T16:18:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-27T21:18:51","slug":"lasalle-basement-tax-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/lasalle-basement-tax-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"LaSalle Basement Tax Survey Continues in February"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LaSalleduplex\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s still confusion in LaSalle about what property owners are supposed to do when they get incorrect tax bills. The dilemma needs to be sorted out soon because the tax department will be sending out more notices next month.<\/p>\n

The confusion stems from the January LaSalle Borough council meeting, when Mayor Manon Barbe told Ruxanda Ioan that he should have simply paid $5 to sort out his account. That\u2019s not what city officials told a reporter in December.<\/p>\n

In an email dated December 18, Patricia Lowe from Montreal\u2019s communications department wrote:<\/p>\n

The following is an overview of what citizens should do if notified about a basement apartment:
\n1. If inspectors find there is a bachelor or basement apartment that is occupied by a tenant and has not been reported, the owner-occupant must pay the water and waste tax on that unit. No retroactive tax will be billed.
\n2. If an apartment exists, but is used exclusively by the owner-occupant, he or she can ask for an exemption by filling out a declaration under oath at the borough office, pay a $5 administrative fee and agree to have an inspector visit the home to check the basement. Once these two conditions are filled, the owner-occupant is exempted from the $140 tax for the basement bachelor apartment. The borough office number is listed in the letter.
\n3. If the bachelor does not exist, the owner-occupant should simply contact the division de l’imposition<\/i> which will send an inspector to verify this.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Ruxanda does not have a basement apartment and therefore followed the third set of instructions. When an inspector went to his building, he made comments that led Ruxanda to believe that he paid $140 for his own unit twice\u2014once in April; the second time in December. Ruxanda later found the two bills and called again to complain.<\/p>\n

City officials told a reporter then that Ruxanda\u2019s tax file is in the process of being corrected, but they did not admit to double billing him for anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Ruxanda is definitely not being billed twice,\u201d wrote Patricia Lowe, an agent with Montreal\u2019s communications department, in emails dated December 20th<\/sup> and January 11. \u201cHe does not need to worry on that account. The Finance department and the LaSalle borough have worked hard to correct the misunderstanding. Mr. Ruxanda is not being billed twice. He will not be billed for the non-existent apartment. The tax account has been corrected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruxanda\u2019s problems come from being among 2000 people who were identified as possible tax evaders in a basement survey last summer. He and several of the others got their letters in the fall; others will be billed in February as the operation continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the summer, inspectors looked at properties that might possibly house a basement apartment,\u201d explained Lowe. \u201cWhen they found what seemed to be an apartment, whether or not it had a civic address, a finance employee would call the owner for more information. If the information indicated that there was a bathroom and kitchen, or a kitchenette in the unit, only then was a letter sent out to the taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruxanda\u2019s letter arrived with two bills in a brown envelope that made the package look like a normal tax invoice. He could either pay $280 ($140 for his own home and another $140 for the basement apartment) or he could visit the borough of LaSalle and pay $5 to sign an affidavit.<\/p>\n

According to Salle communications officer Pierre Dupuis \u201csince the Service des Finances started this update operation in July, we have had around 350 owner-occupants come to the LaSalle borough hall service counter to fill in an affidavit, so as to get the exemption because they use the bachelor for their own purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruxanda did not have a basement apartment at all, so he searched for a way to remove the charge from his account permanently. The package contained no contact name, and though it did have an email address and a fax number, it had no phone number. A phone number within the contents was always busy and couldn\u2019t be identified by 311 operators.<\/p>\n

After many useless phone calls, Ruxanda complained directly to Mayor Manon Barbe at the borough council meeting on December 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for the gift of this extra number 1319A, but I don\u2019t have a basement apartment,\u201d said Ioan Ruxanda. \u201cMy taxes doubled. Who invented this situation?\u201d<\/p>\n

The situation stems from an administrative desire to find people with unofficial apartments, said Mayor Manon Barbe. Officials decided to hire inspectors\u2014some of whom were students\u2014to travel around various neighbourhoods and find them. \u201cWe\u2019re only discovering that this happened now as taxpayers like you complain,\u201d she said. \u201cYou just need to visit the borough and sign an affidavit confirming that you don\u2019t rent out a basement apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n

That message had already been explained to Ruxanda by borough officials, he said, but filling out that form would cost $5.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not paying $5 or anything else,\u201d said Ruxanda. \u201cI\u2019m not paying anything. This is your problem. You fix it. This extra $5 fee is just theft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruxanda complained that officials compounded his frustration first by telling him that fixing the error would cost him $5, then by refusing to let him speak to Manon Barbe to tell her about the problem personally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI voted for you,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve lived here for ten years and I always pay my taxes. I\u2019ve lived in Canada for thirty years. Who is this woman who won\u2019t let me speak to you? So I don\u2019t have a mayor; police officers assume that I\u2019m lying. Who\u2019s working for me?\u201d<\/p>\n

After the meeting, Ruxanda decided to pay the $140 tax to cover water and garbage services for his own home prior to the December 19 due date.<\/p>\n

A few days later, a borough inspector arrived to confirm that his building does not have a third unit. In their conversation, the inspector asked Ruxanda why a bill for water and garbage taxes came in November when they\u2019re usually sent in April.<\/p>\n

That led Ruxanda on a search through his documents over the holidays. He found a $140 invoice in April and then another invoice for the same unit in December.<\/p>\n

And he doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s alone. \u201cIf I got the same $140 bill for water and garbage service in April and then again in November, the same thing probably happened to all those other people too,\u201d he said. \u201cNo one\u2019s taking responsibility to make sure citizens are treated fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he was frustrated, the property owner again went to talk to the mayor at the January council meeting. That was when Mayor Manon Barbe chided him for avoiding the $5 fee.<\/p>\n

As an aside, in the public exchange, Barbe called the citizen Mr. Ioan and he didn\u2019t correct her. He told a reporter later that although his name correctly appears on documents with Ruxanda first and Ioan second, Ruxanda is his family name and he prefers to be called Mr. Ruxanda. When we asked why he didn\u2019t correct the Mayor, he said he doesn\u2019t care what she calls him.<\/p>\n

Since the January meeting, Ruxanda says he\u2019s spoken to two tax officials. The first one found an error in his file and agreed he should be reimbursed, but she also said she\u2019s not in charge of his file.<\/p>\n

Ruxanda says that when the agent in charge of his file called, she was so rude he hung up on her. He hopes he\u2019ll still get an updated notice about his account in writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s still confusion in LaSalle about what property owners are supposed to do when they get incorrect tax bills. The dilemma needs to be sorted out soon because the tax department will be sending out more notices next month. The confusion stems from the January LaSalle Borough council meeting, when Mayor Manon Barbe told Ruxanda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-identity","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2buQs-ne","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/basement-apartment-surve\/","url_meta":{"origin":1440,"position":0},"title":"Was LaSalle owner taxed twice during basement survey?","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"January 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The LaSalle property owner who complained about being charged for a non-existent apartment last month now believes he was double-billed him for water and garbage as well. Ioan Ruxanda now wants his money back, but so far no one from Montreal\u2019s tax department has returned his calls. Patricia Lowe, an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1495,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/taxpayer-gets-overpayment-back-with-interest\/","url_meta":{"origin":1440,"position":1},"title":"Taxpayer gets overpayment back with interest","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"February 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The LaSalle taxpayer who paid 2013 garbage and water taxes twice\u2014once in April and a second time in December\u2014has been fully refunded. 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LaSalle set its rates on December 13 when two bylaws passed at the December\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16131,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/lasalle-council-dec8-2014\/","url_meta":{"origin":1440,"position":3},"title":"LaSalle Council Report","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"December 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"LaSalle borough councillors approved many projects at their December 8 meeting. Prior to those motions being passed, residents asked questions about borough councillor pay scales, taxes, 31 lost parking spots on Dollard Street. 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