WHEREAS provincial school taxes are based on assessment and there is a large discrepancy in the amount that resort communities pay based on inflated assessments compared to neighbouring communities in the same school district; AND WHEREAS this impacts the ability of people to continue to live and work in these communities: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the provincial government be requested to review the effectiveness of its current approach to assessment of school taxes within school districts to ensure that it is providing the intended benefits with respect to equity and ability to pay among communities.
Ministry of Finance The Province currently has a mechanism to deal with situations where there is excessive variation in residential property values among municipalities within a single school district. The mechanism is to create a separate, lower residential tax rate for a municipality in a school district that has high residential property values relative to the rest of the school district. The lower rate is a blend of the school tax rate in the rest of the school district and the rate that would apply if the municipality were its own school district the hypothetical stand-alone rate. To qualify for the special school tax mechanism, a municipality must meet two tests: - average residential values in the municipality must be at least twice as high as the average for the rest of the school district; and - the tax saving from moving from a school district rate to a hypothetical rate for the municipality as its own school district must be greater than 20 per cent of the hypothetical stand-alone rate. Any municipality that meets these tests is eligible for the separate treatment. In 2005, the only municipality that met both tests was Tofino. The Minister of Finance reviews this program as part of the annual tax review that is undertaken in preparation for the provincial budget.