The time has come for tax cuts
Editorial appeared in Fort McMurray Today May 5, 2006.
Wood Buffalo municipal council is poised to enact a complicated tax scheme next week that, we’re told, will force the oilsands industry to pay more. Regular homeowners to pay less.
Hallejuah.
It’s about time.
Oh, and thank you councillors (assuming they’ll pass the measure unchanged).
The deadly spiral of overspending that politicians have been forced to support in recent years is directly attributable to the industry that brought most of Wood Buffalo’s residents here in the first place.
Oilsands companies are healthy; they’re cashing in record profits. They’re in a fine position to help pay for the insfrastructure needed to support the employees they’re bringing here.
While the largesse of the industry in charitable matters is renowned, more is needed. The way to get it is through taxes.
Although the Alberta and Canadian governments have been on tax cut plans in recent years, it’s easy to make the case that Wood Buffalo is in dire straits without new sources of revenue.
In years past, homeowners were part of the equation. While politicians bravely claimed to hold the line by keeping the tax rate stable, the measure was hoovering cash from wallets at an unprecedented rate, because the value of local homes was on the rise.
Finally, our municipal leaders have seen the error of their ways. They’ve lowered the rate, so much so that Joe and Jane McMurrayite will likely pay less this year.
So we’re told.
The whole process is cloaked in complicated formulas that even today’s bright young math students would be perplexed by.
We’ll have to take their word for it. The truth will come out when homeowners look at their 2006 tax bills and compare them to 2005.
If it’s higher, there are several politicians down at city hall who will wish they’d never run for office.
If it’s lower, they’ve accomplished the task we voted them in for.
One sidebar to the tax debate: rural homeowners, specifically in Saprae Creek, may be opposing the new rates because they will pay more.
We’ve heard this one before.
For years, Saprae Creek got a free ride as citizens of Improvement District 18 — property tax bills were in the hundreds, not thousands of dollars, like their urban cousins.
Much has been made of the difference in services for the people living on acreages near the airport.
But Saprae residents now get many of the same services city residents boast. And they will be welcomed through the doors of the $118 million expanded MacDonald Island recreation complex, as will people from Beacon Hill and Timberlea: the difference is where they’ve chosen to live.
Council has enshrined a two-level property tax system that ensures Saprae residents will always pay less than those in Fort McMurray.
It’s a fair system, and any debate over grievances from the rural area must not be allowed to deny the vast majority of Wood Buffalo homeowners their due: tax relief.
While we haven’t heard from industry yet on this issue, it’s likely their shareholders will object to paying more property taxes. They’d rather see fatter dividends.
Those arguments, like any made by Saprae residents, must not be allowed to block this important change in tax policy.
Shifting the burden further to the the oilsands industry makes sense almost any way you look at it.
The precise way it’s done must be left up to the bean counters of the world. But homeowners, under fire with huge increases in almost every other aspect of modern life, deserve this break.
Wood Buffalo municipal council is poised to enact a complicated tax scheme next week that, we’re told, will force the oilsands industry to pay more. Regular homeowners to pay less.
Hallejuah.
It’s about time.
Oh, and thank you councillors (assuming they’ll pass the measure unchanged).
The deadly spiral of overspending that politicians have been forced to support in recent years is directly attributable to the industry that brought most of Wood Buffalo’s residents here in the first place.
Oilsands companies are healthy; they’re cashing in record profits. They’re in a fine position to help pay for the insfrastructure needed to support the employees they’re bringing here.
While the largesse of the industry in charitable matters is renowned, more is needed. The way to get it is through taxes.
Although the Alberta and Canadian governments have been on tax cut plans in recent years, it’s easy to make the case that Wood Buffalo is in dire straits without new sources of revenue.
In years past, homeowners were part of the equation. While politicians bravely claimed to hold the line by keeping the tax rate stable, the measure was hoovering cash from wallets at an unprecedented rate, because the value of local homes was on the rise.
Finally, our municipal leaders have seen the error of their ways. They’ve lowered the rate, so much so that Joe and Jane McMurrayite will likely pay less this year.
So we’re told.
The whole process is cloaked in complicated formulas that even today’s bright young math students would be perplexed by.
We’ll have to take their word for it. The truth will come out when homeowners look at their 2006 tax bills and compare them to 2005.
If it’s higher, there are several politicians down at city hall who will wish they’d never run for office.
If it’s lower, they’ve accomplished the task we voted them in for.
One sidebar to the tax debate: rural homeowners, specifically in Saprae Creek, may be opposing the new rates because they will pay more.
We’ve heard this one before.
For years, Saprae Creek got a free ride as citizens of Improvement District 18 — property tax bills were in the hundreds, not thousands of dollars, like their urban cousins.
Much has been made of the difference in services for the people living on acreages near the airport.
But Saprae residents now get many of the same services city residents boast. And they will be welcomed through the doors of the $118 million expanded MacDonald Island recreation complex, as will people from Beacon Hill and Timberlea: the difference is where they’ve chosen to live.
Council has enshrined a two-level property tax system that ensures Saprae residents will always pay less than those in Fort McMurray.
It’s a fair system, and any debate over grievances from the rural area must not be allowed to deny the vast majority of Wood Buffalo homeowners their due: tax relief.
While we haven’t heard from industry yet on this issue, it’s likely their shareholders will object to paying more property taxes. They’d rather see fatter dividends.
Those arguments, like any made by Saprae residents, must not be allowed to block this important change in tax policy.
Shifting the burden further to the the oilsands industry makes sense almost any way you look at it.
The precise way it’s done must be left up to the bean counters of the world. But homeowners, under fire with huge increases in almost every other aspect of modern life, deserve this break.
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