City of Powell River Council passed seven permissive tax bylaws that will give tax relief to 70 qualifying organizations in the city.
At a special council meeting on October 29, councillors reviewed an extensive list of permissive tax exemptions for the 2021 tax year, which must be adopted and implemented each year by October 31 by council through bylaws.
According to a staff report from the October 13 committee of the whole meeting, since the amount of taxation approved each year by council is the amount that must be collected to balance the municipal budget, it is also the case that any taxation exemption granted to specific taxpayers results in a shift of these taxes onto remaining taxpayers who have not been exempted.
With regard to the 70 submissions, staff determined the applications for exemption are consistent with the terms of the Community Charterand council’s policy on permissive tax exemptions.
Councillor George Doubt said there were a number of these permissive tax exemptions bylaws and they had been discussed previously at council meetings. He said the city’s community finance advisory committee has given some preliminary recommendations about how city council might want to deal with permissive tax exemptions in the future.
“That whole thing needs to be explored as we go forward to 2022,” said Doubt.
He added that he wanted to point out that the permissive tax exemptions amounted to a significant dollar value that the city is granting to a number of worthy community groups.
“I’m proud the city is supporting these groups,” said Doubt. “It’s significant that the taxpayers are all contributing to the well-being of these organizations throughout our community. It’s a significant amount of real dollars, it makes a difference in our community, and I’m proud of the taxpayers for letting us do that.”
According to the staff report, permissive tax exemptions granted in the 2021 tax year amount to $377,941.
