As Mayor, I would implement a 5% discount on property taxes for seniors (65 years and over) living in their own home (primary residence). Arguments against such a discount are that it would discriminate against other property tax payers. I disagree with this.
The Federal Government already gives seniors (65 and over) a tax break on their income tax in the form of an age credit. If the Federal Government can provide such a tax break for seniors at the Federal level, then why not at the Municipal level?
Something people forget, is that once seniors leave the work world, in many cases they end up living on a fixed income which is being slowly eroded over time due to tax and service (read utilities) increases.
There are cases where seniors must sell their homes and move into apartments or with family as they can no longer maintain the living standard they were used to.
We need to recognize the difficulties that seniors face and do things such as this property tax break to ease their burden. These are folks that in many cases grew up in our community and devoted their entire work life to supporting Waterloo.
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