Item - 2026.GG29.1

The Controller and Chief Accountant 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 196 receivables listed in Attachment 1, uncollectible, and direct the Controller and Chief Accountant to remove these amounts from the tax assessment roll by writing them off.

This report outlines accounts receivable balances deemed uncollectible and written off in 2025 under the delegated authority of the Controller and Chief Accountant, including property tax amounts owing, outstanding receivables for invoiced services, and fines issued under the Provincial Offences Act.

This report recommends that Council deem uncollectible and approve for write-off certain property tax amounts owing on 79 individual property tax accounts, comprising 196 receivable amounts which total $299,458.16, from taxation years 1994 to 2024. Staff are recommending these property tax receivable amounts for write-off as they are no longer reflected 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 2025, the Controller and Chief Accountant, in accordance with delegated authority under the City’s Financial Control By-Law, has approved the write-off of $1,008,896 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 8,022 Provincial Offences Act cases totaling $3,019,028. 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 2025 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.

This report considers three components:

1. Property Tax Collection

The total estimated property tax amount to be written off with the adoption of the recommendation in this report is $299,458.16, consisting of a municipal portion (which includes added charges) of levied taxes of $69,764.23 a provincial education portion of $17,462.59 and an additional $212,231.34 in interest charges and fees as at April 1, 2026. The provincial education portion of $17,462.59 to be written off will be recovered from the various school boards as these amounts have already been paid to the respective school boards.

The total write-off of $299,458.16 represents an extremely small percentage of the total amount of taxes billed over the period of 1994 to 2024. In general, the City annually collects 97 per cent of all taxes in the year billed, with a long-term collection success rate of over 99.9 per cent.

The penalty / interest portion of the total write-off is considered to be an estimate. Since interest accrues on tax accounts on a monthly basis, the amount of interest / penalty to be written off will continue to increase until the date the actual write-off is approved and processed. The write-off of the recommended amounts will have no impact on the current year’s budget, as these amounts have already been accounted for in the Non-Program Allowance for Doubtful Tax Receivables Account in prior years.

2. Other Billable Services

Amounts totalling $1,008,896 listed in Attachment 2 (representing 0.13 per cent of $750 million total billable revenues for 2025, excluding grants and billable revenues for Parking Tags, Tax and Utilities) were written off by the Controller and Chief Accountant in 2025 in accordance with delegated authority provided in the City's Financial Control By-law, after completion of appropriate collection efforts. These amounts, which are included in the City’s Accounts Receivable sub-ledger have been provided for in the City's Allowance for Doubtful Accounts and expensed in previous years; as such, there was no impact to 2025 operating expenditures. Details of actions taken, and the recommended write-offs are noted in the Comments section below. 

3. Provincial Offences Act Defaulted Fines

Through delegated authority, amounts totalling $3,019,028 Provincial Offences Act defaulted fines deemed uncollectible were written off by the Controller and Chief Accountant in 2025 in accordance with delegated authority provided in the City's Financial Control By-law, after completion of appropriate collection efforts.

There is no financial impact to the City's revenues arising from these Provincial Offences Act defaulted fines write-off. Revenues reported in the City's general ledger reflect only the portion of the outstanding Provincial Offences Act fines that are deemed collectible.

The Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer has reviewed this report and agrees with the financial implications as identified in the Financial Impact section.