The business assist factor

What is the effect of having business in our city? As we increase our non-residential tax base do we reduce the tax burden on residential tax payers? The table below shows the effect that Business (etc) has on our residential tax rate. The higher the assist factor the more taxes are reduced to the residential taxpayer. The first table illustrates the progress in Vernon from 2001 to 2007. (The business assist factor © is a way of measuring how increased non residential property assessments in our community affects the residential tax base. It is a different measure than the tax ratio method although there is some correlation.) The second table shows our relative standing with other cities in 2006.

The business assist factor is easily calculated by taking the % total Assessment of the Residential class, subtracting the % total taxes paid and expressing that product result as a % of total assessment.( (%Ass-%Tax) /Total Ass.)

Since 2001 the Non Residential Class (Business, industry, utilities etc.) has tended to trend upward indicating that they were shouldering a bigger part of the tax burden and helping the residential tax class. This trend was stopped abruptly in 2007 when the Residential Tax Class was hit with a 4.95% tax increase while the Business tax class was the beneficiary of a 6.6% tax decrease.

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