I wonder how they make up the Numbers, I think they go for a few Beer and say shall we go up this Year or keep it the same, or is it how much do we need to keep all happy.
I would like to pay Taxes for the Services I get not for what the Shack is worth.

I would think the assessments are based on sales figures of like properties in the same neighborhood, etc. It is not an exact science, nor supposed to be any indicator of what your property is ‘worth’ if you tried to sell it. There are many factors that play into that.

What it is used for is for the City to set the property tax rate. Regardless of what properties are assessed for, the City will adjust the mill rate to get what they need from the taxpayers to keep the City running.

Thank you for posting that explanation JohnnyBelt.

I find it amazing how many on here, such as Outwest, who do not understand that is how it works.

Go to this site:
http://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca and put in your property or anyone’s property and click on the “compare by address” or “compare by sold properties” and you will get either a list of assessment values in your immediate area or sales of similar properties in the past year for similar areas. As you wrote, it is those actual sales that the assessments are based on.

You can also get details on property area, construction year, finished area, how many floors, how many baths, whether standard or custom built. The latter, of course, is a bit more of a subjective measurement.

In the end, the assessors have as reasonable an input as they can get without walking into each property to look at the condition of the inside of the building.

For now, Government is still staying a few feet away from the “bedrooms of the nation.”

;-)

Outwest wrote: “I would like to pay Taxes for the Services I get not for what the Shack is worth.”

There is a lot to be said for that. Those services which can be reasonably calculated in that fashion are more and more being paid that way – garbage (by container size), sewer connection, water connection, use of city facilities such as pools, conference rooms, etc.

There are general services which are not based on that system, but by value of the property which can be viewed in part as “ability” to pay, in a similar fashion as the income tax sytem.

If everyone were actually to pay the same, then the person who is living in a trailer on a small strata property whose value might be $110,000 would pay the same $4,250 in property taxes as the individual who is living in a $1.9 million house in St. Denis.

I think I know who might like that and who might not like that. ;-)

Oh, and the more meters and electronically controlled communication devices we get, the closer we come to that apparent ideal of “user pay”.

Depending on where you are on that scale of payments, be careful what you wish for.

It would be nice if we paid by actual usage, but with that we are letting the government collect more and more data on us. Which is never a good thing. I happen to own a nice house.. live alone and pay approx $4,000 a year to the city, yet the house beside me is much smaller..they have 3 kids and use tons more water and they pay approx $2100 a year.. FYI our lots are the same size.

But do I want a meter on my water..of course not.. that would just give the city more reason to charge us more for usage. Its bad enough with being over charged now for electricity since the installation of the new meters from Hydro.

Gus.. I hope you are not saying that right now the guy in St Denis is paying just over $4000 as it is a lot more than that. Unless you are saying the average for all would be approx $4200. Then I may agree with you.. my house is close to 1/4 of the worth of the 1.9 million one and I pay around $4000 for the lousy roads.. horrible snow removal, over paid city employees and useless council and mayor.

P Val…your single, just sell out and become a tenant, no more property taxes to pay!! Simple. No more house insurance, no more maintenance….really simple.

It certainly would be cheaper.. but since I have served my time in a tiny little box with noisy neighbours and late night parties I will stay in my house. But if I where to do it again.. dont think I would ever buy a house again.. to bad I got spoiled by moving into a house…

Yes P Val, that is what I am saying. The calculation is simple. Figure out how much the City wants to collect from residential property taxes, divide that figure by the total number of residential property owners to pay that tax, and everyone of those owners has the same bill to pay.

Take that philosophy to commercial propertes and the owners of the HSBC building will pay the same amount for their building as the owners of the London Hotel property down the street.

Jim13135 wrote: “just sell out and become a tenant, no more property taxes to pay!!”

Not directly, that is true. But the rent money goes partially to paying for the apartment building owner’s property taxes, any principle and interest on building mortage, maintenance and, with any luck, profit over and above the incremental increase in value of the property.

Investors in apartment buildings would be eternally grateful to see PG move more from owned accommodation to rental accommodation. ;-)

Just listening to the news in the background. Average assessments in the GVRD are up by more than 10% – 12% in Buurnaby, 16% in Richmond, etc.

Vancouver up by 10 to 25%.

Resort communities tyically down. Valemount down.

Average BC assessment is up by 6%.

http://www.theprovince.com/business/Home+values+still+soaring+Vancouver+Whistler+down+Assessment/5940630/story.html

http://www.theprovince.com/biggest+winners+losers+home+assessment+values/5940936/story.html

“Five most booming B.C. resource towns by residential property value.”

1 – Stewart – 20.8%

2 – Northern Rockies – 17.6%

3 – Fort St. James – 17.5%

4 – Pouce Coupe – 10.6%

5 – Tumbler Ridge – 10.2%

so if assesment values were supposed to stay around 2-5% change for residential properties … How come mine went up 9.13%

opps residentiol changes 0-1% … hell if it was 2-5% I would be ok with … Now my taxes are going up even more

I guess I can take solice that my assesed Value has gone up 38 grand in 5 years