Tax Payments Being Made
Friday, July 15, 2016 @ 5:59 AM
Director of Finance for the City of Prince George, says 78% of the tax notices sent out , have been returned, but that means there are still thousands that have to be paid.
Missing the deadline means an automatic 5% penalty is added to the bill. That penalty stays in effect until September 9th.
If the bill isn’t paid by September 9th, another 5% will be added to it.
Comments
The beginnings of a taxpayer revolt? One can dream…
yeah, you can revolt paying taxes, but what happens when services gets cut. Snow removal is not happening. The boulevards are not mowed. Parks are shut down.
What happens when Administration, the Mayor, Council, and City workers don’t receive a pay cheque. They are also City services, and we need to look at what we pay these people and what we get in return.
I think it is now pretty obvious that our high taxes are a result of high wages and benefits.
When you have a situation where people on lower incomes with very little or no benefits are paying taxes so that Government workers can have high wages, and good benefits, we have a serious problem.
Now is the time for the City of Prince George to get serious about lowering taxes.
Yes, we do have a problem. But what should be done about it?
Reduce the government workers’ wages and benefits? Sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it?
But a lot of those workers, probably most of them, have increased their indebtedness as their wages increased.
So how is that going to be dealt with, when they can no longer make the payments on the house with the mortgage they thought they could afford, but now can’t? Or on the car, or pick-up, or whatever else they’ve borrowed for on the basis of their present earnings, and now those earnings have been slashed?
Will this bring those who are not government workers “up” in THEIR own standard of living, when those now seemingly overpaid are pushed back “down”?
Not likely. May even have the reverse effect. Many only have ‘jobs’ themselves because of the continuance of the present level of overall spending, even though that spending is coming initially from increased overall indebtedness.
Cut the incomes that repay that indebtedness, which HAS ALREADY BEEN INCURRED, and what’s going to happen?
We are on a much more complicated treadmill than most imagine. We will NEVER solve the problem, and it is an ever growing problem that needs a permanent solution, by going down the same path that has already been tried numerous times before, and always failed. Time to look at the ‘Big Picture’ ~ at the entire ‘money system’ itself, and see why it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do.
Wow, socredible, take a chill pill. Enjoy this absolutely beautiful sunny morning and count your blessings. With all the world issues right now, we are lucky to be living here.
“Director of Finance for the City of Prince George”. That is the second time in recent days I have heard the name. Does this person have a name?
“78% of the tax notices sent out, have been returned, but that means there are still thousands that have to be paid.”
That is the first time I recall seeing such a comment at this cutoff time of previous years. How does this compare with previous years? It sounds like this is unusually high.
from an article on the net this morning headed “The death of the middle class is worse than you think”
“A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute, with the chilling title “Poorer than their Parents: Flat or Falling Incomes in Advanced Economies,” shows just why this is the case. According to the paper, the trend in stagnating or declining incomes for middle-class workers is not just confined to the United States but is a global phenomenon hurting workers across the wealthy world.”
So, is it the middle class who are not sending in their taxes? Or is it the equivalent of the Trumps of PG?
I always pay my taxes on time and in full, so the penalty is never an issue for me. However, I find a 5% penalty, due even if you are one day late, extremely unreasonable!
Some people struggle to come up with the funds required to pay their never ending increasing tax bill! A penalty of 5% followed by another 5% penalty, all within only 2 months of the due date seems a bit like highway robbery or to put it another way, loan shark rates!
So, if you don’t pay by September 9th, will Krause, Hall, Merrick, et al show up at your house with their boys to bust your legs or perhaps fit you for a pair of concrete shoes to wear on the boat ride that they offer you?
The house assessment might go up, but if one stays in the same range with respect to the median assessment, the tax payable may be higher or lower depending on the total residential tax levy.
For instance, my assessment went up, but the actual tax payable was slightly lower than last year with everything else such as BC rebate(s) staying the same.
lets say your taxes are 2500 for the year , 5% is what 125.00 .
stop going to timmies for 2 weeks and there is your increase.
or some people can learn to budget better.Here’s another trick,stop buying houses that you cant afford.
I don’t think that we should confuse people on public payrolls with people on private payrolls. They are two different things.
Those private workers have to earn extra money to pay taxes to pay the salaries for the public employee’s. Without these taxes we would have no Government.
The problem comes when we get bloated Government with excessive employee’s (including management) who get excessive salaries and benefits, which are far better than the wages and benefits of a large majority of taxpayers who have to pay these costs. To make the situation even worse we do not get value for our dollar. In a lot of instances we are paying top wages for very little production.
It is not the responsibility of taxpayers to keep people on Government jobs because they need a job.
We need a re-evaluation of the public service with a view to having the cost of public servants to be more in line with the private sector for jobs with similar duties and responsibilities. We then need to have our high paid managers reduce their budgets by 5% for the 1st year and hold that line for another 4 years before review. The review could result in a further reduction in salaries and benefits, or perhaps more job reductions.
People who get laid off would have to go on EI or find other work the same as the rest of us.
In other works it time to do some belt tightening and to get some control over spending at City Hall.
The time for this to start is now. The present Council have a few more years to get things in order. No more of this BS of leaving everything until just before the next election and then making all sorts of promises. We need action now, to show that the present Council are serious about doing a good job for all the citizens of this city.
1. we pay for city employees with our property taxes as well as user fee taxes.
2.City employees live in houses, condos, rental accommodations as well; they pay the same taxes the non-city employed people pay.
3. we all receive services for those taxes. Some use some services, others use other services.
4. payroll taxes, value added taxes and any other type of taxers go to the federal government and the provincial government, not to city government.
5. Again, we all receive services for those taxes. Some do come back to the City as grants.
That is not to say that in some cases, even in more cases over the past decade, that the pendulum has swung in favour of the government employees at all levels of government.
So, the problem then, as I see it is that in the ever-increasing income gap between the rich and the poor, which is well recorded over the last decade or two, those in UNIONS, whether in the public sector or the private sector have done better than those in non-unionized private sector.
I believe those working at the Canfors of this province, whether unionized or excluded, are still better off than those working for the City. That is another matter for those working in the non-unionized private sector, especially in the retail, food service and similar industries.
Notice the attempt at adding an automatic 16% for service onto a restaurant bill. In Europe, where this is standard, people still tip on top of that. Restaurants believe that upping the price per menu item would not be supported, whereas the upping go the price by 16% and attributing it to tips is tolerable.
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