Item - 2025.GG24.1

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 118 receivables listed in Attachment 1 to the report (August 29, 2025) from the Controller and Chief Accountant, uncollectible, and direct the Controller and Chief Accountant to remove these amounts from the tax assessment roll by writing them off.

This report provides information on accounts receivable amounts that were written off as uncollectible in 2024 under delegated authority provided to the Controller and Chief Accountant, 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 13 individual property tax accounts, comprising 118 receivable amounts which total $824,656, that relate to taxation years 1989 to 2024.  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.

For the fiscal year ending 2024, the Controller and Chief Accountant, in accordance with delegated authority as provided in the City’s Financial Control By-Law, has approved the write-off of $1,893,544 in outstanding receivables for various services invoiced by City Divisions where collection is considered doubtful.

The Controller and Chief Accountant has approved the write-off of 20,636 Provincial Offences Act cases totalling $3,492,998.47. In all cases, no amounts were recovered since debtors could not be located or were deceased and / or had no assets, or exhaustive collection efforts proved futile.

There is no financial impact in the 2024 fiscal year from these write-offs since amounts owing are not recognized as revenue until paid or unless there is a reasonable expectation of collection.