YMCA of Toronto Appealing Tax Exemption Ruling

Issues involving the tax-exempt status for nonprofits such as the YMCA are not limited to the United States. They extend to Ys in Canada, too.

The YMCA of Toronto is appealing the ruling of an Ontario Superior Court judge, who sided with the city of Toronto in wanting the Y to pay taxes on four properties it leases in the city.

According to the Toronto Star, the Y applied for an exemption from municipal property taxes in May. The Superior Court ruled in favor of the city the following month in the case titled "Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Toronto v. Municipal Property Assessment Corporation."

From the Toronto Star:

The 1923 provincial act that established the YMCA in Toronto exempts the organization from taxes on any "buildings, lands, equipment and undertaking of the said association," as long as they are used for YMCA purposes. The four leased properties at issue are not buildings, equipment or undertakings, Superior Court Justice Paul Perell concluded in his ruling in June. They are "land," at least for property law purposes, he wrote.

The four properties, which the Y uses as a youth shelter, administrative office, child care center and a site for programs for at-risk youth, are not the Y's land or land "of" the Y, the judge ruled, which is why the Y cannot claim a tax exemption.

The case is now before the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Star reported, and will affect five other towns and cities in the province.