Item - 2024.GG13.2

The General Government Committee recommends that:

1. City Council deem the unpaid property taxes levied in all years (including interest and penalties that have accrued on those unpaid taxes up to the time of write-off) on the 182 receivables listed in Attachment 1 to the report (May 1, 2024) from the Interim Controller as uncollectible, and direct the Controller to remove these amounts from the tax assessment roll by writing them off.

2. City Council deem the Provincial Offences Act fines with a total value of $6,051,456 listed in Table 3 and Attachment 3 to the report (May 1, 2024) from the Interim Controller as uncollectible and direct the Controller to remove this amount from the respective account by writing it off.

This report provides information on accounts receivable amounts that were written off as uncollectible in 2023 under delegated authority provided to the Controller including property tax amounts owing, outstanding receivables for invoiced services, and Provincial Offences Act fines.

This report recommends that Council deem uncollectible and approve for write-off certain property tax amounts owing on 31 individual property tax accounts, comprising 182 receivable amounts which total $1,950,451 that relate to taxation years 1995 to 2023. Staff are recommending these property tax receivable amounts for write-off as they are no longer returned on the assessment roll, or for which further collection efforts and recovery of outstanding amounts are extremely unlikely to be successful.

Additionally, there are 3 cases of Provincial Offences Act receivables with a total dollar value of $6,051,456 which this report recommends be deemed uncollectible and approved for write-off, as the Controller does not have delegated authority to write off. These offences relate to pre-transfer cases that are associated with corporations that are no longer in operation and for which City Legal has confirmed that they have no recoverable assets.

In 2023, the Controller, in accordance with delegated authority as provided in the City’s Financial Control By-law, has approved the write-off of $1,024,197 in outstanding receivables for various services invoiced by City Divisions where collection is considered doubtful. The Controller has also approved the write-off of 11,296 Provincial Offences Act cases totalling $8,052,086. In all cases, no amounts were recovered since debtors could not be located or were deceased, the business was no longer in operation and / or had no assets, or exhaustive collection efforts proved futile.