Bruce Walkinshaw - Penticton Western News Published: July 22, 2010 6:00 PM
It seems Penticton Council will provide some sort of tax relief for at least two of the four community organizations affected by the city’s new-ish permissive tax exemption policy. The policy, which blew in all sorts of controversy for council last year when it prescribed gradual rollbacks of tax exemptions collected on land surrounding applicable churches and charitable organizations, had concerned members from the Elks Club and the local legion at city council’s Monday night meeting. “In 2009 council adopted the permissive tax exemption policy,” city treasurer Doug Leahy explained. “At that point in time the real significant difference between the previous policy and the policy that was adopted was that the policy did not exempt establishments whose major source of revenue was the sale of alcohol from taxation.” Leahy said there are four main service clubs or organizations that are affected by the change in policy: the Annavets, the Eagles, the Elks and the Legion — the latter two of which have been caught fiscally off-guard by the subsequent increase of their 2010 taxes after receiving exemptions in years past.“In 2010 the city provided over $900,000 of permissive tax exemption to non profit organizations,” reported Leahy. “To date the Legion has come forward with a request that council consider exempting their 2010 property taxes. Staff is also aware of the Elks Club who is considering the same appeal. (The) Annavets and Eagles have not yet come forward.”If council did decide to grant an exemption, or partial exemption, Leahy said, the organizations could only begin benefitting from the tax reduction for the 2011 tax cycle. For 2010, he continued, council would have to issue the organizations grants. Currently, the four owe over $34,000 in property taxes, not just for municipal taxes but for school taxes and other levies with the Annavets owing $6,808, the Eagles $8,919, the Elks $8,100 and the Legion $14,547. “Are there any spare funds for these monies? No,” said Leahy. “(A grant) would have to come from our general fund ... something else would have to be deleted.”
Coun. Dan Albas proposed that council rescind the policy for the Legion and the Elks. “This particular policy has caused a lot of consternation in our community,” said Albas. “It is my understanding that (the legion) has not had a sound financial footing for the last few years ... the money will literally have to come out of volunteer efforts and they are probably already at the max.” Albas said that the Legion helps out a lot of organizations throughout the community. “For us to not at least look at recension or at least try to find a way to make it a mutual win-win, I think hurts the community,” he continued. “I think that at the city we owe them better than that. And that if we were to negotiate with them and maybe look at a different formula, I’m sure that there is a middle ground that can be achieved.” Some on council were not keen on completely doing away with the policy because there were other issues that it did a good job addressing. Eventually, only Coun. John Vassilaki ended up voting to kill the policy outright. “I know for a fact that the Legion is having financial problems and they can’t afford to pay $14,000 and that perhaps they might have to shut down because of it,” said Vassilaki.
It was suggested that just because the Annavets and the Eagles had not applied for exemptions, they should not be denied the ability to access them in the future. “We should not be dividing the organizations but ... we should be dividing the functions,” said Garry Litke, asserting that council should consider amending the policy to only exempt the portions of the organization’s buildings that do not sell liquor. “I can’t support a tax exemption for those premises (with liquor licenses) but for the rest of the buildings (used for) social functions or fund raising activities for the good work that they do ... I can support that.” Council voted unanimously to refer the matter to staff for a report to provide exemption options for taxation on liquor sales areas as soon as possible.
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