Finance and Audit Talks Taxes
Prince George, B.C.- The Finance and Audit Committee of the City of Prince George will meet this morning to talk about assessments and possible tax rates.The previous council developed a budget that required a 2.5% increase. In order to achieve that boost, The Finance and Audit Committee will look at three options presented by staff.
Option one would see residential tax rate set to collect the needed 2.5%, and the balance of the revenue needed by increases to Business, Major Industrial Light Industrial and Farm tax rates.
It means a home that was assessed at $223,403 last year paid $1,780 in taxes. That same home is now valued at $230,216 and taxes would be $1,825.00 for 2015.
Option 2 outlines the same rate for residential, but makes some adjustments to other classes.
Option 3 Increase the Residential and business tax rates, and decrease the Major industry rate.
No matter what the Finance and Audit committee decides, it will be Council that will make the final determination.
Comments
All these tax increases are way more than my wage increases. Same amount of money goes out of my account each month meaning less into the PG economy.
Wait, Option 3 decreases taxes on Major industry while putting the burden on residential and business (commercial?) citizens? Does that seem off to anyone else?
The industry seem to be the ones with the large profit margins and disposable income, with the large captial investments in the area they would be much less likely to pull up and leave than the residential and business markets would be to feel and react to the hit.
A balanced budget for every government, business, and citizen simultaneously, as in any same fiscal period, is a mathematical impossibility. Under the current conventions of accounting applied to the economy as a whole, for the government sector to balance its books, the budget of some other sector will be out of balance. And a further increase in debt ~ in its totality under the current conventions, unrepayable debt ~ is necessary to make up the difference.
So we should be able to stop paying for the winter games after this year and that should balance out any increase, right? Or will they just call the winter games tax something different, like maybe…ummm, oh ya, rain tax.
What we need is a freeze on all budgets. Any further increases in salaries or benefits would have to come from the present budgets, and if necessary through attrition, or other cost saving initiatives.
We need to get the idea out of our head that Municipal Governments (Actually all Governments) are good stewards of our tax dollars, and strive to do what’s right for the community as a whole. In fact, they waste tax dollars at an alarming rate, and what they do spend is usually on bogus projects that we could do without. The Community Energy System comes to mind. River Road Dike fiasco. RCMP building, money wasted on buying, selling, and gifting land, etc; etc;.
The fact that we have a surplus of some $500,000.00 from previous budgets, to put into the remediation project in the Fraser River Bench Lands, should get you raising your eyebrows. How can we have such a huge surplus when we have to raise taxes to keep operating.???
We need the Provincial Government Auditor to Audit the City of Prince George, and determine if we are in fact doing the best job possible spending tax dollars.
I can’t see the city dinging businesses…
I am waiting to see if our new council has the same propensity to continue to raise taxes without looking at making some cuts to spending. They should look at IPG and try to figure out what the rational is to keep it. What has IPG brought to the table in terms of economic development in the past year? We all know that they have made trips overseas to help local business recruit worker(s) – I believe they found 2 workers. What other waste is there? I am tired of the switch and bait game where we are told that our taxes are low while in the same breath we are told we need to pay higher user fees.
“I am waiting to see if our new council has the same propensity to continue to raise taxes without looking at making some cuts to spending.”
——–
A council put in and backed by the union representing the municipal civil service would never even dream of cuts. Unless of course, they only want to be in there for one term.
Politicians who keep their backers happy tend to stay in office longer then those who try to work for the people they supposedly represent.
axman. How many votes do you think the Union representing the municipal civil service could muster??? I suspect not enough to make a big difference in the over all turnout.
So up to mayor and council to determine taxes… Well how many have experience ? We have a few returning and they only know how to increase and spend stupidly. Maybe the new members will grab a clue and realize with every increase we see a population decrease, yet they want to draw people to PG..
Mayor and council… Don’t be stupid with your decision.
Posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2015 @ 12:03 PM by Palopu
axman. How many votes do you think the Union representing the municipal civil service could muster??? I suspect not enough to make a big difference in the over all turnout.
——
The number of votes is only part of the equation. They also donated money to their picks to help with name recognition which goes a long way in an election.
You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. That’s all I’m saying.
Comments for this article are closed.