Vancouver Sun
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Page: B1 / FRONT
Section: Westcoast News
Byline: Frances Bula
Businesses hoping for city tax freeze; The homeowners' tax will jump by 8% instead of 4%, if council accedes
VANCOUVER - Vancouver businesses are waiting anxiously to find out today if city council will agree to freeze their taxes, a move that will double homeowners' tax increase this year.
A freeze would mean that homeowner taxes would increase by eight per cent, instead of the four-per-cent rate set when the budget was drawn up earlier this year.
Today's meeting caps years of protest from businesses that their tax rates are out of proportion to the services they use and the amount of taxes homeowners pay.
Bob Laurie, a co-chair of the Fair Tax Coalition, said he believes a freeze, "is the right thing to do. There's not going to be any residential backlash."
But, he says, he is concerned that the ruling Non-Partisan Association will be unwilling to take that step for fearing of angering homeowners. At the moment, business pay taxes at approximately six times the rate homeowners do.
"I think the NPA to date [has] been very timid," said Laurie.
NPA finance chair Peter Ladner was not available to comment because the NPA caucus was meeting to decide on its position.
Opposition Coun. Raymond Louie, of Vision Vancouver, said his party has not come to a conclusion yet, but he said any shifting done by the city will not address two major factors that will affect business taxes this year.
One is the provincial government's decision to cancel the TransLink parking-stall tax, which would have forced suburban commercial landowners to pay more in taxes and which will now increase Vancouver business taxes, since they have the highest land values in the region.
The other factor is the way commercial land values in some parts of Vancouver skyrocket when certain areas such as Fourth Avenue become more popular, or when the city changes zoning to allow residential uses on formerly commercial property.
Businesses would continue to pay at a rate of $11.79 per $1,000 of assessed land value, but homeowners' rate would increase from $2 per $1,000 to $2.086 per $1,000. That means on the average home in Vancouver, now worth $740,000, the tax bill would increase from $1,449 in 2006 to $1,575 for 2007 -- $119. If there were no freeze on business taxes, the bill would have gone up only $53, according to the city staff report.
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