Taxes going up beyond assessments
That wonderful time of the year again just after the Christmas bills when our friends at the Ministry of Finance give us these astonishing assessment increases but tell us not to worry because it doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in taxes.
My increase was $50,000 more than my appraisal but, again, not to worry, everyone is in the same boat because of things coming down since last July when they did the assessments. Let’s hope things don’t spike again this coming July.
So to get down to the figures, my assessment was 16 per cent above the average in 2021 yet my taxes went up 21 per cent. My assessment was eight per cent above the average in 2022 yet my taxes increased 16 per cent. So in two years of my average was 24 per cent above the average yet my taxes increased 37 per cent. Do anybody’s assessments actually go down?
My question is, what are the municipalities doing with this windfall of extra taxes? Are council members giving themselves big increases? Are city workers getting massive wage increases? Are our services getting so much better? I had to use my ATV with the snow plow to do our street as the plows were busy elsewhere. That was a little late as garbage pickup was interrupted (a different over and above tax, of course) for four weeks. They must have saved a little money there not putting on extra scheduling. But I digress. I smell something fishy in the taxation system and it doesn’t appear to be coming from low tide in Cowichan Bay.
Evan Begbie
Cowichan Bay