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Property Tax Services
Tuck's Professional Services [TPS] offers a wide range of professional
services, including but not limited to business, legal and political services.
Our Speciality
Our specialty is assisting SMFE's (Small, Medium Family Enterprises)
in whatever areas they require in order to survive and prosper. Our
areas of expertise include property tax appeals, small claims, collections,
incorporations, trademarks, financial matters, criminal matters, case
management for superior and supreme court, product import and export,
tax court, regulatory affairs and issues with the government.
Our firm hires lawyers,
paralegals, law clerks and other qualified professionals in order to
develop and present the best possible case at the most affordable investment.
One of our legal and political speciality practices is in Ontario
property tax matters before the Assessment Review Board.
Our winning record is equivalent to any other legal services firm,
lawyer and / or otherwise.
PLEASE NOTE - Tuck's Professional Services practice
law but are not lawyers, solicitors or barristers.
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The Reality of Ontario's Property Tax Assesment
In the Province of Ontario your property
is supposed to be assessed based upon the "ACTUAL MARKET VALUE" estimate
of your property as of a specific date. Reality is much different.
The entire property tax system in Ontario for over 50 years has been
geared to confuse the taxpayer, and everyone else involved in the
system.
Ontario has one of the highest realty taxes per property in the
industrialized world. There are over 16 billion dollars received
annually from some 4.3 million properties. Ontario's program
over the years, has created one of the most dysfunctional and expensive
assessment revenue based systems in the free world!
Individual homeowners, as well as multi-national corporations and
others, need to hire "COST EFFECTIVE PROPERTY TAX PROFESSIONALS"
in order to routinely review their interim tax notices, final tax
bills, and annual assessment notices, as well as any supplemental
notices received during the year.
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Our Professionalism
Our firm, in an overwhelming 95% of the cases brought to us, are
able to help get our clients cost reduced! Tuck's Professional
Services is a full time legal services firm experienced in handling
hundreds of cases who employs a number of trained and experienced
professionals. We not only know the game, but we are on the leading
edge of redesigning the game to be more fair and accurate. Our firm
uses online access to keep up with the Ontario Superior Court and
the Canadian Supreme Court relevant legal decisions, and monitors
the Assessment Review Board decisions for applicable precedents.
- We also track all applicable legal and regulatory changes, sales,
leasing information etc. and are active politically with the various
government entities involved in the "Ontario Property Tax Game".
- We meet with the senior members of the provincial government,
municipalities, government agencies, and members of the Provincial
Parliament to provide "Real Case Studies" to lobby on behalf of
our clients to correct flaws in the system.
- Our Property Tax professionals have the knowledge to analyze the
applicable laws, facts, and issues and then to act as your expert
to support an estimate of value and / or to refute the government's
estimate of value.
- We present conclusive, documented evidence based on our broad
experience and accepted standards of practice in several different
fields.
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How We Can Assist You ?
There are 100's of millions of dollars in illegal fees being collected
by the municipalities due to taxpayers either not having all of the
information necessary at the right time to minimize their fees and
/ or failing to file under the right laws and regulations, the properly
prepared applications! Quality control issues, computer and / or data
entry errors all lead to potential for errors. The millions of taxpayers,
and thousands of municipal and provincial staff involved in creating
your assessment values, interim and final tax bills, adjustments for
this, and that, quite often do not themselves understand the complex
and ever changing systems.
- Our Professionals can review your property assessments, frozen
roll and capping calculations and tax bills, to determine exactly
what your correct liability is.
- Our experienced professionals can perform an in-depth analysis
of your property classification, property management system and
compliance procedures, and other factors.
- We can identify problems and areas needing improvement and communicate
the results of our review.
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Our Cost-effective Professional Service
The legal, procedural, accounting, and regulatory complexity of
the property assessment related fees and charges in Ontario has
created the need for "Cost-effective Professional Services" that
are able to provide timely assistance to Ontario property owners
and occupiers of Ontario based real estate.
Our firm does something that, to our knowledge, no one else does
- we provide the best possible legal services available in Ontario
on property assessment appeals and other legal and government issues.
As our reputation for winning has grown, we are more and more facing
and beating, the best law firms in the Province of Ontario that
are used by government.
- THE SECRET TO MINIMIZING YOUR PROPERTY RELATED FEES AND CHARGES
IS TO HAVE OUR "TOP GUNS" STAY ON TOP OF THE SITUATION ON YOUR
BEHALF TO OPTIMIZE YOUR RESULTS EVERY DAY, OF EVERY YEAR. As most
of you are aware the system is so complex, and "User Unfriendly"
that full time specialists are required to "Stay on top of your
rights".
- OUR FEE FOR SERVICE ON AN ONGOING BASIS APPROACH is revolutionizing
how property owners in Ontario protect themselves, and "THEIR
BOTTOM LINES" from paying unnecessary charges, and fees. You need
to fax, or e-mail our team your interim and final tax bills as
soon as they come in, as well as the assessment notices, for our
review. Our detail oriented, hands on approach includes the following
steps;.
- Verification of the accuracy of all assessment records, frozen
roll, and capping calculations from 1995 to date.
- Site specific details of size, type of construction, uses, and
other factors. Local vicinity verification of market factors and
conditions.
- Review of all municipal tax bills and associated worksheets
and regulations from 1995 to date.
- Segregation of real, personal, and intangible property values.
- Identification of market conditions and inequities among comparable
property owners in local, regional, and provincial wide marketplaces.
- Review and assist in tax classification management cost control
of your property. Identification and preparation of rebates, exemptions,
credits, and abatements.
- Confirmation of the correct conversion in the 1997 frozen rolls
calculations.
- Independent legal evaluation of options under the various laws
and regulations.
- Independent evaluation analysis of value on an ongoing basis.
- Site-specific assertions of your rights under the law for your
specific property.
- Routine ongoing verification that the current and past charges
and assessments are correct and that the various capping and other
controls have been interpreted and applied correctly.
- Professional assistance prior to buying property and / or acquiring
property.
- Professional assistance prior to selling property
- Professional assistance in staged development of property.
- Structural guidance on how best to hold, develop, lease, manage
etc. your businesses and properties to minimize assessment related
fees expansion of existing facilities, major renovations,
and plant closures and curtailments, foreclosures, etc.
Our detailed analysis of these items create for our clients the
best possible property tax savings opportunities. Early tax planning,
ideally before an event occurs, can make the most of these opportunities
to reduce and / or minimize your liability as a result of assessment
related charges. Assessments are often based on costs - but costs
do not always reflect value. Our property tax professionals can
help you analyze your property value and ensure that your property
tax liability is not inflated with excess costs that do not contribute
to value. Any change in operations, market, or operating conditions
affects your property taxes.
Our tax planning professionals can help you identify property tax
savings opportunities.
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PROPERTY CLASSIFICATION AND RECORD KEEPING
For property tax purposes classes of property may be treated differently,
and have different levels of assessment and / or different rates
of taxation. In addition, classification systems may differ between
tax jurisdictions. Accurate classification can minimize property
tax costs. The distinction between real and personal property is
critical. In jurisdictions that do not tax personal property, an
item incorrectly classified, as real property will be unnecessarily
taxed. In jurisdictions that tax both real and personal property,
an item that can be classified, as personal property is depreciable,
resulting in a lower overall assessment.
The balance between GST, PST, and other taxation declarations can
significantly impact present and future costs. Lawyers involved
in business purchases involving real property routinely fail to
declare the appropriate breakdowns on land transfer certificates,
thus causing unnecessary assessment related charges.
Our property tax professionals have extensive experience in the
classification of property and are familiar with the intricacies
of jurisdictional classification systems throughout the Ontario
system.
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TUCK'S NET OPERATING INCOME [NOI] ENHANCEMENT PLAN
TPS'S NOI plan is about helping the investor obtain
the best possible financial return on investment from their real estate
holdings.
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Our Property Tax Professionals can follow up on the development of
a "Tuck's NOI Enhancement Plan" for your property and / or properties
in Ontario. We either handle it, and / or work with your staff to
implement ongoing property tax reduction procedures by assisting you
in the ongoing relationship and negotiations with an assessor until
the minimum level of tax liability is achieved.
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Our firm then maintains permanent records of vacancy and financial
trends to ensure minimum tax liability levels are maintained on a
go forward basis
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Our firm proactively designs and submits all of your annual information
for everything from vacancy applications under the Municipal Act Section
442.5, to your required financial information under Section 11 of
the assessment Act.
IT is very important that the right information, presented in the
best possible format, and at the right times of year is done on your
behalf.
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We can thus assure that your assessments are kept as low as possible,
and that trouble can be headed off ahead of time, and that the roll
changes are not "Bad News". Expensive and complicated appeals can
often be avoided. No person, or organization with any amount of real
estate holdings in Ontario should be without this type of permanent
professional representation in these matters.
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Besides being extremely complex, the local assessors hold most of
the cards. They deal regularly with uninformed taxpayers who do not
often have the required information, training, time, or experience
to properly assert their rights. Large corporations are often too
busy with their own core business to pay annual attention to their
property assessment status issues. IT IS A VICTIM'S GAME, and there
is nothing fair, nor reasonable about what assessors have been trained
and managed for decades to do to Ontario property owners.
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Our firm often describes it as you, and your wife were going out
one evening and leaving someone that you think you trust in care of
your home, and then you come home early to find 3 of your 5 rooms
of furniture loaded onto a truck. On challenge the "trusted person"
offers to return 1 of the 3 rooms, and shows no guilt about what is
going on.
REMEMBER BY DEFINITION - THE VAST MAJORITY OF ONTARIO PROPERTIES
ARE OVER ASSESSED.
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MPAC staff are literally in our opinion, and experience stealing
30% more from almost everyone, and when forced to, will, as a "favour"
return 10% to 20%, and then try and "Con You" into believing that
you are now being treated really well. "THEIR" entire game is minimum
complaints, and minimum reductions to "buy-off" those that do complain,
particularly with any skill!
JUST BY HIRING OUR FIRM YOU GET AN EDGE!
You will discover that just by hiring our firm there is an immediate
change in the game. We understand the laws, regulations, procedures,
and "Their Culture" at the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation
and the MPAC staff know this. We are the opponet that MPAC least wants
to face on any appeal. We work inside and outside the tactical box
to ensure success.
In the last few years on well over 100 cases we have almost a 100%
winning average. By introducing a professional
non-lawyer legal agent the whole process becomes different. "They" know
that we know their game, and that any flaws we can find will usually
lead to significant reductions.
Our firm, by simply asking all of the right questions have caused
significant reductions in our client's assessments, thus property
related costs.
Our firm has handled properties where a $300,000 assessment was in
dispute with the client being offered a lowered assessment of $225,000
by the assessment people. With us involved we got it lowered to $150,000.
The same has happened with a $2,100,000 property that had never been
question by a large multi-nation corporation. We got it reduced to
$1,200,000, and backdated two years. The client received over $40,000
in a cash rebate.
Clients appealing properties are often faced with unfamiliar questions
relating to appraisals, with terms such as obsolescence, fair market
value, discounted cash flow, and net present values, and are uncertainly
about what to ask for, and how the processes work.
One of our clients received almost $190,000 in tax rebates.
AT TUCK'S PROFESSIONAL SERVICES WE WIN FOR YOU AND USUALLY RETURN
YOUR INVESTMENT IS OUR SERVICES AT LEAST 100% to 300% over a three
year period or so!
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PROPERTY TAX APPEALS ONTARIO
Property Tax Appeals
The Assessment Review Board (ARB) is an independent administrative
tribunal whose main function is to hear complaints from people who
believe that properties are incorrectly assessed or classified. The
Board also deals with complaints about other matters such as school
support designation and some property tax appeals.
Tuck's Professional Services is fully trained in resolving
any Property Tax Assessment complaints and is qualified in the art
of mediation with the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC)
and the ARB.
We can help you answer the following issues:
- Are your realty property taxes and associated charges out of control?
- Understanding your assessment notices, capping regulations, tax
bills, Section 11 requests for information letter, etc.
- Making sense of all of the new laws, demand letters, application
forms, regulations, tax bills, calculations, etc.?
- Understanding and applying for all of your rights each year to
minimize your realty property taxes, and related fees each year
- Applying for your vacancy rebate for industrial and commercial
landlords.
Ontario has one of the highest realty taxes per property in the industrialized
world. There are over 16 billion dollars received annually from some
4.3 million properties.
According to our experiences, at least 10% of this is because property
owners, and managers do not understand the complex laws, regulations
and procedures concerning their properties. Understanding is of key
importance as well as having the right team working for you.
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