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Five members of the city’s seven-member budget committee say Mayor Rob Ford’s signature promise to cut the land transfer tax will not happen anytime soon.

A poll this week showed 60% of respondents want the tax eliminated, as the Mayor pledged during the election; the mayor said last year that at least some of the tax would be gone by the end of 2012.

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“Realistically, the full elimination of the land transfer tax is impossible without slashing and burning the city to a point where it would be unrecognizable,” Councillor Peter Milczyn, a member of the Mayor’s executive and a budget committee member, said on Friday. Instead of repealing a portion of it, he argues that some of the money should be used to build infrastructure, such as subways. The land transfer tax raises about $300-million a year for city operations.

Budget Chief Mike Del Grande says eliminating the tax is “not on the front burner” for him, because he first has to balance the books before thinking about eliminating a revenue source. Councillor Frank Di Giorgio also would not touch the tax at all. The Mayor’s office was unavailable for comment.