MPAC to appeal sign firm ruling

A spokesman for the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation

MPAC) said Monday that it plans to appeal a December decision by the provincial Assessment Review Board

ARB) to change an Orangeville sign-making business’s tax classification to commercial from industrial.

The corporation’s next step is to take its case to Divisional Court, which will decide whether MPAC has grounds to proceed with its appeal. A court date has not been set.

Rose Mclean, MPAC’s director of legal and policy support, said the ARB’s decision served to “create a new definition of what is manufacturing and what is processing. ... It changes the tax policy.

“For us to do our job properly, we need clarity.”

Ken Filsinger, proprietor of Sign Needs on Centennial Road, had appealed MPAC’s decision to give him an industrial classification; a decision that meant he would have to pay over $4,000 more in annual property taxes and, in his opinion, need to generate around $100,000 in extra sales to recoup those funds.

On top of that, Sign Needs is currently the only local signmaking business with an industrial classification. The rest have a commercial designation.

In determining tax classifications, MPAC has leaned towards Regulation 282/98, Part 2, Section 6 of the Ontario Assessment Act. In it, an industrial property is described as “land used for, or in connection with, manufacturing, producing or processing any- thing.”

Ms. Mclean said the ARB December decision was not in accordance with that provision in the Act. In order to warrant an industrial classification, the ARB decision said, a property needs to have an operation on it that produced wholesale products in large quantities.

“If it stands, [the ARB decision] will have implications across the province, not just on this particular property,” said Ms. Mclean.

In defence of applying an industrial classification to Sign Needs, she alluded to a case where MPAC gave an industrial classification to a potter who sold his crafts directly to the public.

MPAC’s decision to appeal has raised the ire of Dufferin-Caledon MPP Sylvia Jones, whose office has been helping Mr. Filsinger with his struggle. “I give Ken full credit for taking on the monster called MPAC,” said Ms. Jones in an interview. “This reeks of big government saying ‘we’ve got endless resources and we will use them to wear (Mr. Filsinger) down and make sure he doesn’t win.’”

The appeal is not the only salvo MPAC has fired at Mr. Filsinger.

Even though the ARB hearing was held in June and the decision not rendered until December, MPAC has told the Town of Orangeville’s tax collector that 2009 was “a reassessment year” and Mr. Filsinger’s industrial classification stands, despite the ARB decision.

The corporation says the decision only applies to the 2007 and 2008 taxation years and if Mr. Filsinger wants to regain his commercial status from this point onward, he will have to put in “a request for reconsideration” with MPAC for the 2010 tax year.

Since his case could be back before the courts, Mr. Filsinger was reluctant to talk at length about MPAC’s latest move. “What I will say,” he said, “is that this is a case of our tax dollars being spent to fight us.”