Homeowners throughout B.C.
have felt the squeeze of rampant
inflation and speculation in the
land and housing market with
giant increases in property tax
assessments received over the past
two weeks.

It is in Vancouver where land
speculation and manipulation by
real estate interests have forced
the price of homes up by 50 per-
cent in the past year where
homeowners taxes will be hit
hardest by high assessments.

The Socreds did reduce the
assessment base, or the portion of
actual value taken for tax pur-
poses, on homes from 14.5 per-
cent last year to 11 percent this
year. But they also reduced the
base on industrial property from
30 to 28.6 percent, which
amounts to a tax gift to industry
at the expense of homeowners

and srfiali business.

In Vancoiiver, deputy finance
director Don Forss confirmed, it
will mean a 2.6 percent shift from
industry to homeowners and
combined with a provincial pro-
jected 11 percent budget increase
it could mean a tax boost of 14
percent for the average home, for
municipal purposes.

In Burnaby, municipal
treasurer Alex Karras reports a
slight shift away from residences

of about two percent, but there -

too industry will also get a break.
Business property, mostly: small
business, will carry four percent
more of the tax burden.

The increased property tax
assessments are an unwelcome
result of the manipulation of the
real estate market. It is an illusion
that the homeowner has increased
wealth; but the higher taxes will

be real. This is all the more unjust
because while the same infla-
tionary spiral has not affected in-
dustrial property assessments, it
still has enjoyed a reduction in its
assessment base courtesy of the
Socred government.

Only the Socreds have the
power to correct the inbalance
that will adversely affect homes,
particularly in Vancouver. The
government has the power to
reduce further the assessment

|Assessments go through roof

base for homes, or conversely to
increase the base for industry.
The shift in the tax burden should
be towards those with the greatest
ability to pay, large industrial
properties.

In addition the provincial

government has the power to in- _

crease the homeowner grant, the
political subsidy it has used to
smooth the rough edge off its ine-
quitable property tax system. The
grant was $380 last year.

Don't believe this leaflet sent
by the B.C. Assessment
Authority to every
homeowner with the assess-
ment notice. According to it,
the change in the assessment
base will keep average taxes
constant, unless munici-
palities or school districts in-

flate their budgets. That is a
lie. The “averages” don’t app-
ly to the Lower Mainland
where assessments have in-
creased much more. And it is
the provincial cabinet respon-
sible for distributing the tax
burden between different
classes of property:

Rising Property
Values and
Your Assessment

School

By BETTY GRIFFIN
A shocking increase in school
taxes will be forced on homeown-
ers by the provincial government
unless the Socreds can be forcéd to
reduce substantially the basic mill
rate for school purposes and to-in-

crease the homeowner grant.
Vancouver taxpayers will be the
hardest hit by the expected in-

creases, created by soaring prop-

erty assessment values and by the
taxation and education financing
policies of the Socred government.

If the basic mill rate is unchang-

faxes To

ed from last year, the Vancouver
school district faces the prospect of
meeting the total school budget of
$143 million from local taxes.
Worse, they will have to hand over
to Victoria more than $2 million
property tax dollars at a time when
the school system has been left be-
reft of resources by successive cost
cutting budgets brought in by the
previous NPA school board.

The result is that while last year
the province contributed a mere
four percent of the Vancouver
school budget, this year Vancouver

soar as Socreds pay less

will end up paying the province.
And homeowners will be paying as
much as 50 percent more in school
taxes.

To understand how this has hap-
pened one must know the process
used by Victoria to determine pro-
vincial-local sharing of school costs
— a process which allows the pro-
vincial government to make all the
decisions but has shifted the tax
burden dramatically on to local
taxpayers. ;

The provincial contribution to
school operating costs is based on

Labor economist Dave
Fairey’s challenge against the tax
assessments of the Shell refinery
in Burnaby has been rejected by
the B.C. Assessment Authority
Appeal Board, but it is only the
beginning of the fight for fair pro-
perty taxation, he warned.

Fairey responded to the
board’s rude dismissal of his ap-
peal with an announcement that
he would launch another more
comprehensive challenge against
the 1981 assessments of all refin-
eries in Burnaby.

He also announced a public
meeting Jan. 14, 8 p.m. in the
Capital Hill Community Hall to

- report on the decision and to se-
cure community support for the

second appeal.

ward were also considering taking
the appeal board decision to B.C.
Supreme Court for judicial re-
- view.
The appeal board handed
down its decision Dec. 15, as ex-
pected upholding the position of
the Assessment Authority and
Shell. However in a surprising af-
front to Fairey, it dismissed out of
‘hand all evidence presented in
over 40 exhibits. Neither Shell nor
the Authority presented any evi-
dence.
Fairey had compared the given
values of the Shell refinery to

elsewhere in the Lower Mainland
and to adjacent residential prop-
erties, and calculated estimated
replacement costs for the refinery

Fairey and lawyer J ack Wood-

comparable industrial property -

itself to show that the real value of -

_{ Challenge to Shell's taxes
‘just beginning’ — Fairey

Fairey’s calculations would
have Shell pay $3 million more in
property taxes in 1980, $2 million
to the Burnaby school board and
$1 million to the municipality.

“The decision, to say
the least, is outrageous
and downright scandal-
ous. The fight for fair and

equitable property taxa-—

tion in Burnaby is just be-
ginning.”

However in its tersely worded
decision the appeal board disre-
garded all evidence presented by
Fairey claiming that his argu-
ments ‘‘may be relevant to an
economist’s discussion of the

subject property”’ but they were -

irrelevant to ‘‘the principles fol-
lowed and generally accepted by
professional appraisers.’

At a press conference Dec. 19
outside the refinery Fairey angrily
responded that the “‘decision is,
to say the least, outrageous and
downright scandalous.”

By rejecting Fairey’s evidence
as irrelevant the board likely went
beyond its authority, he said. “In
a normal court of law, judgment
would have to be based entirely
on our evidence when there is no.
evidence submitted by the re-
spondent. This principle of law
must now be tested at a higher
court of law. Can the Assessment
Board conduct itself in a manner
contrary to civil jurisprudence?”

Fairey also took issue with the
board’s assertion that he ignored

Shell’s property was $220million, Zoning regulations in arriving at tee to sponsor the challenge
“not the $47 million value given by Values. One of Fairey’s exhibits against the 1981 assessments of
{the Assessment Authority. _ compared the. industrially zoned the refineries.

land owned by Shell on Burnaby
Mountain, assessed at between
$115,000 and $472,000 per acre,
with the refinery land, assessed at
only $57,000 per acre.

The decision ruled that Fairey’s
comparisons of the market value
of the .Shell refinery to other
North American refineries was
also ‘‘irrelevant.”’

“This is again outrageous since -
it places itself in opposition to any
rational concept of market value
for large internationally traded
industrial properties,” Fairey re-
plied.

The irony of the board’s deci-
sion is that while rejecting
Fairey’s arguments as irrelevant
to accepted appraisal techniques
it repeatedly denied motions from
Fairey and Woodward to require
the Assessment Authority to pro-
duce the “‘assessors’ book”’ which
detailed the methodology of how
the assessment of $47 million was
arrived at. That decision must :
also be challenged in the courts,
Fairey said. His interpretation of
the Assessment Act is that the as-
sessors’ book must be produced if
requested and the denial of that
request is against natural justice
in that it forces an appellant to
meet a hidden case.

Ironically, it was. Shell which
threatened to go to court to pre-
vent the assessors’ book from be-
ing made public. Assessors’ data
on an industrial property has
never béen made public.

At the public meeting Jan. 14
in Burnaby, Fairey will call for the
formation of a citizens’ commit-.

the number of pupils and schoolsin —

each school district (it has absolute-
ly nothing to do with anything that
is taught in those schools) and_is
called the ‘‘basic education pro-
gram” (BEP).

The province raises the BEP,
$1. 106tillion for 1981 , by applying
a general mill rate against all prop-
erty in the province, collected by
each school district. The current
mill rate is 41.2 mills, an increase of
68 percent over 1970 when it was
just 24.1 mills. Usually, the basic
mill rate pays only a portion of the
BEP and the rest is made up from
general revenues.

‘In some school districts with
high assessments the basic mill rate

raises more than the BEP provides ©

for. In these cases the school dis-
trict receives nothing from Victoria
and must return to the provincial
treasury any taxes collected in ex-
cess of the BEP.

This is the situation faced by
Vancouver in 1981. Vancouver
taxpayers will pay the entire BEP
and return over $2 million to Vic-
toria besides.

However the BEP does not
cover all of the costs necessary to

~ run.a school system. Most school

boards must raise extra money by
adding to the mill rate. This year
these ‘‘non-shareable costs,”’ taken
directly from local taxpayers, will
total $143.6 million in B.C., 91 per-
cent higher than last year.

In Vancouver, the school board
estimates it will have to add another
eight mills to meet its basic, costs.
That will raise about $24 million.

In a half-hearted attempt to
soften the blow of soaring assess-

ments, the province did reduce the ©

assessment base for school pur-
poses, or the percentage of actual
value that is taxed, from 14.5 per-
cent to 11 percent. But it won’t stop
the average school tax from going
through the roof.

Here is what can be expected in
one modest stucco bungalow on a
33-foot lot in the Dunbar district of
Vancouver. The basic assessment
in 1980 was $70,000. The assess-
ment base for school tax purposes
reduced. that by 14.5 percent. to
$10,440. The school district then
applied the 41.25 basic mill rate,
plus an extra five mills it needed in
1980 for an effective rate of 46.25
mills. That translated into $482.85
in school taxes.

Now let’s look at the same house
in 1981. The assessment has in-
creased to $137,900. The assess-
ment base has been reduced to 11

percent, but that still increases the
taxable portion to $15,070. This

year add eight extra mills to the
basic 41 :25 for a mill rate of 49.25.
The school tax this year will be
$742.19 — a whopping increase of

~ 54 percent.

You can apply the same formula
to-your own assessment. Just take
the ‘‘assessed value for tax pur-
poses’’ listed on your assessment
notice and multiply by the mill rate
for your school district. The
homeowner grant — $380 and $620
for seniors — is applied to school
taxes. But while taxes are going up,

‘there is no word that pe

homeowners grant will.

In Richmond the school
district’s provisional budget is up
18 percent. And with local taxes al-
ready paying nearly 75 percent of
the BEP, taxes could rise sharply.
Likewise in North Vancouver
where last year the school mill rate
was over 56 mills and where huge
increases in assessments have also
taken place, there could be dramat-
ic tax increases.

The Socreds would like the local
school boards and teachers to suf-
fer the blame for all of this, but it is
the provincial government which is
ultimately responsible.

Our provincial government is
the only one in Canada which
forces local taxpayers to pay for
health, hospitals, welfare and edu-
cation out of property taxes. In
three provinces, none of these ser-

-vices are charged to local taxes.

A massive campaign is needed
for 1981 to expose the province’s
responsibility for rising taxes and to
force it to pay 75 percent of the cost
of education as recommended by
the 1976 McMath Commission and
since endorsed by every organiza-
tion involved in education, as well
as by the trade union movement,
the Communist Party and many
other organizations.

What better placeto begin such a
campaign than in Vancouver
where a new progressive majority
on the Vancouver school board
faces a financial crisis and a tax- —
paying public understandably up-
set. over the prospect of tax in-
creases.

With demonstrative leadership
from the VSB and with the active
participation from teachers, labor
and the community, there is still
time to force the provincial govern-
ment to reduce the basic mill rate
and increase the BEP, as well as in-
creasing the homeowner grant, to
protect both homes and the quality
of education.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 9, 1981— Be ese