Residential Taxes may have to Increase ?? BUT NOT IN VERNON

For a larger image of Table please Click on it.The loss revenue in our area would range from $9200 in Lumby to $297,000 in Coldstream & $278,000 in Spall. Vernon has no Major Industry to tax. Kamloops would lose $3,672,000.


Province ponders tax break By David Skelhon Friday, June 30, 2006, http://www.dailycourier.ca/article_320.php
Coldstream residents could see a substantial hike in their property taxes if the provincial government goes ahead with a cap on heavy industry taxation.Currently, heavy or class four industry pays a rate based on industrial property values determined by B.C. Assessment Authority.District of Coldstream director of financial adminstration, Catherine Lord, said that the municipality currently receives over $400,000 per year from heavy industry. The provincial government is studying several options and one of them is to make the heavy industry rate the same as the regular commercial rate, said Lord.This would reduce the amount collected from heavy industry by 75 per cent leaving the municpality $300,000 short.“The shortfall would have to be met by regular commercial and residential tax payers,” said Lord.She said, “Historically the provincial government has allowed the municipalities to set their own mill rates.”Richard Taylor, the Executive Director of the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM), said that the recommendation for tax changes has come from the B.C. Competition Council. The council was formed by the provincial government last year.Taylor said the UBCM held a member consultation about the recommendations in May and has subsequently been communicating with Minister Ida Chong and Premier Gordon Campbell. “Minister Chong has said they won’t do anything until the municipalities have been consulted,” he saidThe City of Vernon has no heavy industry so Vernon tax payers are unlikely to be directly effected.