Thursday, May 30, 2013

Municipal Taxes are in!

District taxes for 2013 arrived  a few days ago and are up an average of 2.5%. Bank of Canada says the inflation rate is 0.04%.
Message from the Mayor

2 comments:

Barry Rueger said...

The Canadian centre for Policy Alternatives (kind of like the Fraser Institute except a) honest, b) don't just make up numbers and c) aren't in the back pocket of multi-nationals) has a couple of very good posts taking apart the nonsense coming out of the CFIB.

Phony numbers, screaming headline and
CFIB spokesperson blames downloading for muni cost increases

The money shot:

"BC has relatively low municipal (and overall) residential property taxes, compared to other Canadian jurisdictions. Non-residential taxes in BC are higher than residential taxes and are not dissimilar with non-residential taxes in other provinces."

Lyle Craver said...

Our business has been screwed over big time by BC Assessment this year since they've decided without notification that our assessment is not to be based on real estate values in our area but rather lease rates.

This results in roughly a 20% tax increase for our business mostly due to BC Assessment not DNV - we are appealing but not at all confident of success.

The present property value means of assessment where your taxes can go up hugely if an adjoining business's landlord makes a huge windfall profit but not at all if you invest in new equipment and double your sales - that is completely unjust.

But if your rent goes up more than the market rate your taxes should go up dramatically as well?

Richard Walton - defend this in a way that makes any business sense at all. This is noxious and ex post facto legislation and should be opposed by the public generally.

It's not as if we're getting any improvements for municipal services out of all this that's for sure!