“The City’s billboard tax. Yet another tax we can’t afford” Who is this WE they speak of?

by John Laforet
posted on November 30th, 2009 at 10:30:50 am

When I saw a billboard that said “The City’s billboard tax. Yet another tax we can’t afford.” I laughed. Honestly I did. Who is this ‘we’ who can’t afford a billboard tax? I personally favour a billboard tax to a property tax increase, a user fee increase, transit fare increase, water rate increase, vehicle registration tax, garbage fee, land transfer tax – you name it- of the ways City Hall has found to extract more money from Torontonians over the last three years. This seems pretty tame and targeted in a way that it isn’t going to hurt the average Torontonian the same way many tax increases do.

Generally speaking billboards bother me. Especially illuminated ones. Anyone who is shining a light at a sign at night to light up their advertisement is wasting a whole lot of electricity and is consciously making the decision that having their advertisement viewable in the evening is more valuable than energy conservation – something I think most people recognize as being important and support.

It costs like $15 000 a month plus about $3 000 to have the ad produced and installed so we’re talking about an $18 000 investment here. If someone is spending $18 000 seeking a captive audience, I’m sure paying an additional tax isn’t going to price too many people out of the market.

Consider that a full page ad in the Globe and Mail would run the same advertiser $53 000 for a day.

Ladies and Gentlemen – little violins are in order for outdoor advertisers.

The industry lobbyist, the “Out of Home Marketing Association of Canada” is clearly the ‘WE’ we’re supposed to feel for. Sorry guys, but I wonder how out of touch you’d have to be to try and convince the 2.6 million folks who call Toronto home that a billboard tax aimed at folks that annoy us with their marketing materials is somehow something those individuals are going to have to pay and can’t afford.

The sign should read “The City’s billboard tax. Council’s first attempt to shift some tax burden off of residents” because that’s what’s happening here even if the industry doesn’t like it.

OK – so the argument I missed here and really the only possible impact anyone could claim will impact a real person is the potential that this industry will lose business, dry up or die. None of that is going to happen for as long as those billboards continue to be in high traffic spots, someone is going to pay the tax and advertise.

Regardless – let’s just say there was the potential for an adverse economic impact here… who would it affect?

If you visit the citybillboardtax.ca under contribution they don’t state how many people they employ, instead they talk about how much revenue the industry has generated for itself in Toronto last year (about $65 million) and how much revenue was generated for the City (about $36 million). They also talk about ads as being nice and part of the cultural fabric etc.

This $36 million dollars worth of revenue to the City is stable in that Astral media – the guys who bring you most of your ads on city property – so things like garbage cans, bus shelters etc signed a 20 year agreement with the City for the privilege of building our ’street furniture’ and in exchange the City has a guaranteed stream of revenue raised off of these assets. The tax won’t change that, and even the OMAC isn’t suggesting it will. I guess they’re trying to say because the City is leasing them space essentially for one member’s ads they are doing their part as an industry?

The bottom line is these guys don’t have an argument better than ‘but we don’t wanna’ and I get that. Who wants to pass a tax on to their customers – the difference here however is their customers are generally large entities that will pay the tax because it’s still a clear win for them.

They are also running a really crappy campaign based on none of the fundamentals of a winning campaign. Like their product, it is lame, one way communication with no measurable effect or ability to engage interested parties.

I personally support the City finding ways to generate revenue that don’t involve milking existing individual and residential taxpayers  and think ideas like the billboard tax are a far fairer approach from my perspective as a resident.

Tags: Billboard Tax opposition, Billboard Tax support, City Billboard Tax, City of Toronto Billboard Tax, citybillboardtax.ca, Out of Home Marketing Association of Canada, Outdoor Advertising Tax, Toronto Billboard Tax