MUNICIPAL TAX TIME IS HERE AGAIN

Municipal tax time is here and the annual PR game has commenced. Official tax notices will not be sent until the beginning of June, but time moves fast. In the meantime the District has indicated property tax increases for 2008/09 will be between 4% and 5 %.

My advice to homeowners is not to take this as gospel. Indeed, indicating to the public early that increases will be higher than is actually planned is part of the annual game.

It provides local politicians with an opportunity to declare with great solemnity that such “high increases” are not acceptable and that between now and June, ways must be found to reduce the increase which was planned all along. This always sounds good.

Another twist is the annual increase in the assessments. In many cases they are uneven. Residents whose assessments have increased above average will be paying correspondingly more. If taxes for homes go up above average, the district will claim not guilty. Assessments are a provincial matter. At the same time it is convenient to hide behind.

Even so, the task of local government is tough. Provincial and Federal governments are bragging about their swollen coffers. But instead of sharing this “surplus” with municipalities and cities across Canada to upgrade infrastructures, build housing, health and recreation facilities, they will dole out the money to boost their own image. It is an altogether political if not disgusting charade made in Canada.

In the meantime cities and municipalities are being starved except that senior governments go one step further. They legally steal money out of the pockets of local governments. That is the case with gasoline tax. Canada is the only developed country which excludes local governments from sharing the national or provincial pie. It leaves local governments only with the property tax. Homelessness, crime and massive environmental problems are building up. Canada’s cites are decaying and becoming increasingly hostile places to live.

Even so municipal Councils are not always forthright. In the District, in the last 15 -20 year’s taxes have not been what were stated. Reserve funds were steadily accessed and even eliminated. Dr. Corrie Kost, an outstanding and respected community activist calculated that real average tax increases in the District were not between 4% and 5 % annually as announced during many of those years but closer to 8% to 12 % annually.

This has resulted in serious problems especially in the field of maintaining District assets. According to a recent study hundreds of millions of dollar are now needed to bring them up to standard. This includes recreation facilities. Reserve funds such as the District Heritage Fund along with generated interests set up to be used for that purpose are virtually gone. The upshot is that district council, is now considering to either closing facilities including pools under the guise of consolidation and/or privatising them.

Protestations to the contrary can be safely dismissed. On a final point, there is the question of tax distribution between various property categories. In the last few years District Council has given industries a reduced tax rate at the expense of homeowners. This despite the fact that industrial taxes can be written off while taxes for homes cannot.