The Local Gov't Stats Division within the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development keeps tabs on tax info for all of the local governments in BC including total taxes/charges on a standard home. See their website here
Meanwhile - for this year - see below for the chart for total taxes/charges on a standard home in Wells, Quesnel, Williams Lake, and 100 Mile:
Local Gov’t
|
House Value
|
School
Taxes
|
Muni
Taxes
|
CaribooRD
Taxes
|
Hosp.
Taxes
|
Total User Fees
|
2013
Total Charges
|
2012
Total Charges
|
100 Mile House
|
$169,314
|
$531
|
$782
|
$242
|
$99
|
$459
|
$2,317
|
$2,286
|
Williams Lake
|
$197,744
|
$620
|
$1,117
|
$284
|
$119
|
$499
|
$2,814
|
$2,769
|
Quesnel
|
$164,120
|
$631
|
$685
|
$293
|
$97
|
$440
|
$2,325
|
$2,280
|
Wells
|
$74,683
|
$287
|
$227
|
$104
|
$45
|
$326
|
$1,503
|
$1,477
|
Meanwhile - in an another report, Victoria reports the City of Williams Lake has, again!, the highest Heavy Industry Tax Mill rate at $119.6500 per $1,000 of assessable land/improvements for all governments - City of WL, Cariboo RD, School. I'm surprised that West Fraser and Tolko have not made any public statements thus to date, unlike their colleagues in Kamloops, and ask to address Council on this topic for inclusion in WL City Council's 2014 Budget…. perhaps this is coming…
~SF
5 comments:
These findings are always biased in the way they are presented. To present them FAIRLY they must be broken down into a shared equal cost to compare them fairly. In this case tax per $100,000 of house value is appropriate to compare them equally. Do this and you will see the following;
Taxes per $100k of house value;
100 Mile- $1,348.74
Williams Lake- $1,398.34
Quesnel- $1,390.80
Wells- $1,979.18
Tells a bit of a different story doesn't it??!!
Maybe our city brand should be
Williams Lake
Highest taxes in BC
or
Williams Lake
Land of no industry
Could be a very good marketing tool to show everyone what we are all about.
To anonymous #1. Yes, you make a valid point but now you also have to continue stating that these home values are average home prices.
This means you could buy a similar home in Quesnel for almost $30000 less than in WL. Now in this same quality of home you would be paying $500 less per year in tax.
And this is just for homes. Please inject Williams Lake's highest mill rate of $119.65 for industrial properties into the equation and see how much cheaper it would be for a new industry to locate in Quesnel (Or anywhere else for that matter) rather than in Williams Lake.
The negativity in this city by a small portion of citizens is shocking. If it is as truly bad as you think then please leave as the rest of us love it here.
I look around and see a very affordable community with great ammenities for a city of this size.
We are not immune to problems but these problems are shared by all communities to some degree. As a hub of the area we are bound to get transient "issues" that increase our crime rate comparatively but its not nearly as bad as some would make it out to be. The vast majority of crime is undertaken by a a few people from outlying communities and we all know it. Its time those communities started taking some responsibility for their issues instead of pointing at us.
And the statement that our taxes are out of control is laughable! Look at the comparison someone here was kind enough to provide above and you will clearly see we are pretty much the same as 100 Mile and Quesnel on that front. Where would you rather live?? WL has far superior ammenties, weather and services so its a no-brainer for me.
We're exceptionally lucky to live where we do and we often forget that.
Complaining has become a profession for far too many people. Give me more and more but don't raise my taxes.....yah, that will happen!!
I'm proud to be from WL and always will be!
Being proud of and loving this community and being concerned of the direction of some at city hall are two very different issues.
Schools are closing and I've never seen so many empty stores in town and in the mall. Why is this?? Maybe the high tax rate mentioned above are keeping new industry from locating here? After all what really makes our city so special compared to many others that big business would choose to locate here when every single other community in BC is cheaper? People move to where the jobs are and jobs are where business finds it economical to operate no matter how great I believe our city is. This no where in my opinion means I don't love this community. People are moving away and that concerns me. We keep piling on debt and that concerns me. We keep growing city hall staff and that concerns me.
Frankly maybe I just care more than those of you that turn a blind eye to the state of things in town and choose to believe everything is fine.
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