No more free ride: Toronto councillors must return transit passes or risk tax hit
Posted May 1, 2010 6:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – Toronto city councillors have been told to surrender their free Metropasses immediately or risk paying back taxes on them after the Canada Revenue Agency deemed them a taxable benefit.
In an email to councillors on Thursday, TTC chief general manager Gary Webster said a CRA compliance audit of the City of Toronto for 2006 and 2007 found they should have been paying taxes on the freebie worth about $1,100 a year.
Ottawa “will not retroactively assess taxes for the 2006 and 2007 taxation years as long as your 2010 transit pass is immediately revoked by the TTC. Accordingly, passes must be returned to the TTC,” Webster wrote.
The CRA is also looking at councillors’ free passes to the Toronto Zoo and other city facilities.
The politicians could, as with the transit pass, formally request them and acknowledge they have to pay taxes for the benefit.
