City of Powell River councillor George Doubt, who chairs the finance committee, has provided a primer on various forms of taxation that show up on the city’s annual tax form.
Speaking at the April 9 council meeting, Doubt went step-by-step through his tax form to outline various taxes the city collects.
Doubt said qathet Regional District and Powell River Regional Hospital District had set tax rates for the coming year. He said he thought this would be a good opportunity for the community to talk about the city tax notice and how all of the various items show up on the notice.
“All of the taxing authorities we pay taxes to in the city all show up on the same document, and that’s everybody’s property tax notice,” said Doubt.
Doubt said his property value was close to the average for Powell River.
He said with school taxes, once upon a time, school trustees would get together and set a tax rate, the same as the city and regional district. He said decisions were made politically and now the province sets the rate by an order in council. The first line on the tax notice is the school district, according to Doubt, and on his it was $707 in 2019.
Next was a few dollars for BC Assessment Authority and seven cents for the Municipal Finance Authority.
The following item is for the regional district and Doubt said his contribution was $234.93. He said looking at the 2020 regional district requisition, the overall tax requisition for the regional district from the City of Powell River has gone up to $2,133,412 from 1,865,510, or an additional $267,000.
“For the total requisition, it’s more than 14 per cent higher than last year,” said Doubt. “That’s not the change in the tax rate, this is the total number of dollars that are required from the regional district on city taxpayers.”
Doubt said the overall tax change is going to be about $6.52 per $100,000 of taxable value over last year’s taxation rate. He said that’s easier than trying to figure out the percentage of the requisition increase.
Most of the increase is for new services that are being provided. In the case of the regional district, about $3 of the $6.52 is coming from the parkland acquisition fund, which everyone is going to contribute toward to create a fund of $183,000. Doubt said another $3 is attributable to waste management, which is the new resource-recovery centre.
“If it wasn’t for those two things, it would be close to an increase that would reflect inflation,” said Doubt.
Next is the regional hospital district, which Doubt said is borrowing in 2021 for maintenance for the hospital and Evergreen Care Unit. He said the total requisition for the tax burden for the regional hospital district is going to be about $865,000 this year, which is $100,000 more than last year. Doubt said a decision was made by the hospital board to put $100,000 into the non-statutory reserve to fund maintenance of the building.
“The directors thought it wise to create a reserve so there would be money in the bank to do any necessary maintenance, which would avoid excessive tax increases in any one particular year,” said Doubt. “That tax is divided among all of the residents of the regional district and the Tla’amin [Nation] folks pay into that as well. That’s the only income the regional hospital district has other than the lease payment Vancouver Coastal Health pays to lease Willingdon Creek Village from the regional hospital district.”
On Doubt’s tax notice last year, the assessment was $45. That will go up by $1.77 per $100,000 of property value this year.
For the general flat tax for the city, the assessment is being reduced this year, said Doubt.
He said the general municipal tax, next on the list, has not been finalized for this year. He said it is expected to be somewhere around 4.8 per cent.
This is followed by sewer, the garbage levy and other utilities provided by the city, for which there is going to be no increase this year.
“That basically takes you through what’s on the tax form,” said Doubt, “and how the changes are going to take place.”
