spb/wp10_uqo Public

1% Author: Simon-Pierre Boucher — contact@spboucher.ai2% ============================================================================3\section{Conclusion}4\label{sec:concl}56Matching more than half a million residential sales to the assessment7rolls that tax them, this paper delivers the first province-wide audit of8assessment equity in Canada. The verdict is unambiguous. Quebec's9property-tax base is systematically regressive: within the same10municipality, roll and year, the assessment ratio falls by 34\% per11log-point of price in the descriptive fixed-effects estimate, and by 8\%12under the most conservative measurement-error correction available.13Ninety-five percent of municipalities fail the IAAO vertical-equity14standard, ninety-nine percent fail its uniformity standard, and the median15dwelling in the bottom local price decile pays roughly two thirds more16property tax than uniform assessment would imply, while the top decile17pays less. The inequity concentrates where mass appraisal is hardest ---18old houses, plexes, land-heavy and luxury properties, thin markets ---19doubles when triennial rolls fall behind a booming market, and disappears20almost nowhere except Montr\'eal.2122These findings reframe the presumption that centralized, professionally23regulated assessment systems are immune to the pathologies documented in24the fragmented U.S. system. Quebec has uniform statutes, certified25evaluators and statutory market-vintage synchronization --- and produces26regressivity of U.S. magnitude anyway. The binding constraint is not27governance but valuation technology and revaluation frequency, which is28in fact encouraging: cycle length, pooled assessment services and29vertical audit standards are policy variables, and inexpensive ones30relative to the redistribution at stake.3132The matched sale--roll architecture built here supports a research agenda33beyond this audit: linking assessment gaps to neighbourhood34socio-demographics, exploiting the discrete arrival of new rolls to study35price anchoring, and using the land--building decomposition to measure36land-value dynamics at the parcel level. We pursue these in companion37work.38