It look less than five minutes for Williams Lake City Council to unanimously adopt their 2017 Municipal Tax Rate bylaw which features a 0% tax hike for residents along with tax reductions for industry Thursday afternoon.
Mayor Walt Cobb says we have always been number one with the highest industry tax rate in the province.
He says because of the change in the assessment this year, it gave them the opportunity to bring that a little closer to balance.
“We know what the economy is like and what not and we have to make sure that we have industry here so we gave them a little bit of a tax break this year. Not a lot of money involved when you look at the industrial base to get a $84,000 tax base or around there.”
Cobb says although it is not a big deal for industry it will at least the start the downward trend for them.
Taxes meanwhile for business will go up by 2% this year to increase the budget for the paving and milling of roads from $950,000 to $1.4 million.
“Residential went way up in assessment so we’re generating extra revenue there anyway because of the increased assessment so we held that tax rate. On the business and the small business, their assessments went way down. So we changed the tax rate to bring them up so that they were paying the equivalent to what they were paying last year.”
“It’s just a juggling game to try and keep everything in balance and make sure everybody is paying their fair share,” says Cobb.