Taxpayers in Quesnel will be paying more in 2017.
Quesnel City Council unanimously endorsed a 2.5 percent tax increase at last night’s meeting.
Director of Finance Kari Bolton noted that that will mean an increase of $56.21 to the average homeowner or $30.48 per 100 thousand dollars of assessment.
One percent of the 2.5, or 125 thousand dollars of that, will go into the Capital Reinvestment Program.
This 2.5 percent increase follows increases of 2.8 percent in both 2016 and 2015.
One change this year is that, despite a tax freeze at 2015 levels for major industry, West Fraser will be paying more this year because their section 226 tax exemption from 2005 for their new sawmill and office expires this year.
However, as Mayor Bob Simpson explains, that will not mean more money for the City…
“Part of the misunderstanding with section 226 i think quite frankly has been that somehow that’s been a giveaway when in actual fact all it was was not charging the tax on one mill at it’s accessed value but we still collected from the industrial tax group what we wanted to collect to run the City.”
Simpson says the total income the city will get in 2017 will be the same as it was in 2016 and 2015 when it was frozen.
He says the impact of West Fraser paying more is that some other industrial ratepayers will now actually pay less.