Concerned Owen Sound Taxpayers - COST

The Truth About Taxes

The revenue from taxation increased by $13.6 million, or 61.1%, between 2011 and 2025. For comparison the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased $6.46 million or 29.3% during this same period. As shown below the increase in revenue from taxation was fairly linear during these years. This greatly increases the confidence in a linear projection of tax revenue into the future which is shown by the dashed trend lines. This linear projection shows that revenue from taxation has been increasing steadily at an average rate of $967,418 per year which is more than twice the rate of inflation. This graph relies on the city's audited Financial Statements which are highly reliable. Unfortunately, our city does not post these statements until nearly the end of the year following the year in question so the 2024 financial statements were not available as of October 2025.

Revenue from Taxation Showing Growth Well above Inflation - Past, Present and Future

Excessive Growth

The 2025 tax revenue shown in the approved 2025 budget is $35.7 million. This is shown on the graph above by the yellow star. This represents an increase of slightly over $13.6 million or 61.1% since 2011. We can say with some degree of confidence that if Council continues on the path of increasing taxes at the same rate, the city 's revenue from taxation is predicted to each $37.7 million in 2028.

However, when we examine the 2026 budget we find that the city has budgeted on tax revenue of $38,133,221. In other words the city has already blown by our 2028 perdiction. Using our projection formula we perdicted that tax revenue would be $36,510,017 in 2026 which is actually $1.6 million less than what is currently budgeted. This tells us that, not only are taxes growing a a much higher rate than inflation, but they are actually increasing expodentially.

Why are Taxes Growing Faster Than Inflation?

The short answer is: Uncontrolled Expense Growth drive Excessive Tax Growth.

If, in 2011, Council had directed that all future tax increases be limited to inflation, then revenue from taxation in 2026 would have been budgeted at $29,000.348 or $9.1 million less than the $38.1 million budgeted for 2026. Think about that for a minute - taxes are $9.1 million more than they would have been had taxes been capped at inflation. Given that Owen Sound's popuation is actually smaller than it was in 2011, this increase can not be justified.

The reason why tax increases climb exponentially, is the compounding impact that successive annual increases have on the end result. For example, a hypothetical council imposes a tax increase of 3% to a $10,000,000 budget, in year one, resulting in a new budget of $10,300,000 or an increase of $300,000. If it again imposes a 3% increase in year 2 the new budget would be $10,609,000 or an increase of $309.000. In other words the dollar value of the budget grows a little bit faster every year even if the percentage increase remains the same at 3%. That is because the percentage increase each year is not only applied to the original budget but also to all of the pervious increases of past years. The net result is that even if the percentage increase is small and remains the same each year, the size of the budget grows exponentially resulting in the size of the budget doubling in 24 years.

The rapid growth of taxes over the past ten years has had a devastating impact on all of us - residents and businesses alike. The group that is likely most affected by these property tax increases is, surprisingly, the group that doesn 't actually own property, the renters. Residents that rely on the availability apartments to rent make up a large portion of our population. Generally this group does not have the means to buy a house so they are at the mercy of landlords. You can be sure that those that own apartment buildings pass on 100% of their property tax increases to their tenants if not restricted by rent controls. The impact of high rents is only one of many impacts that chronic annual tax increases have had on Owen Sound residents.