CALLS FOR TAX REFORM

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1972

See page 12

‘lift tax burden on homes’ —Yorke

‘‘Apartment owners and com-
mercial properties are being
subsidized at the expense of
homeowners,’’ Bruce Yorke, a
trade union economist and
COPE aldermanic candidate
charged last week.

‘While homeowners have been
burdened with a 9.4% increase
in their taxes since 1966, the
average apartment owner
enjoyed a tax cutof7% from 1971
to 1972," Yorke stated. The
figures he released — from the
Office of the Director of
Finance — showed that in 1971,
the average taxes for apartment

owners amounted to $5, 723 but in
1972, that figure had dropped to
$5, 332.

“Tf apartment homeowners,
like homeowners, paid an in-
crease in taxes— evena 6% in-
crease—’’ he said, ‘‘the revenue
generated would amount to
$750,000. That alone would pro-
vide for a$10 reduction in home-
owner taxes.”

Yorke also pointed to the large
commercial properties such as
the department stores that
receive tax concessions based
on decreased assessment.
‘‘Many large properties are

assessed at only a fraction of
their true worth,” he said. He
advocated assessment of these
properties at full market value
and also called on Victoria to
rescind the 10% limitation on
assessment for school purposes

which, in 1972, provided for a.

$75,576 tax cut for the Hotel Van-
couver and $78,170 cut in the case
of the Burrard Building.

While citing examples of ways
in which the homeowner burden
could be reduced substantially
by making the present tax
structure more equitable,

Yorke also emphasized the pro-

posed changes in the business
tax that are part of the COPE
program.

‘“‘We have, for some time now,
called for the institution of a
graduated rate, varying with
the size of the business, from
6% to 20%,’’ he said. ‘‘And if the
20% rate were applied to the 97
largest firms in the city it would
provide for a2% tax cut for thou-
sands of small businesses and a

$35 average tax cut for home-

owners. That would be the real
expression of a civic govern-
ment for the people of Van-
couver not the big developers.”

OV'T URGED

By MAURICE RUSH
British Columbia’s for-
ests — on which half the
province’s income and
jobs depend — are being
rapidly decimated by the
forest monopolies who are
failing to carry through-
an adequate program of
reforestation.

This fact emerged last week
when the latest figures on the
forest industry were released
showing that for every four
acres of forest land being
denuded only three are being re-
placed. In short, 25 percent of
our forest lands are not being re-
forested which means that our
primary resource is _ being
rapidly destroyed. :

According to the facts re-
leased last week, there are now
9.3 million acres of forest lands
which have been logged off and
not adequately reforested.

That’s an area larger than Van-

couver Island. But that’s not the
complete picture. As a result of
the failure by forest companies
and the government to carry
through adequate reforestation
that total is added to each year
by another 150,000 acres.

Forestry experts say that a
minimum 140 million seedlings
should be planted each year if
our forest resources-are to be
kept in a healthy state. In 1971
only 44 million were planted and
in 1972 only 50 million.

Critics of the Socred govern-
ment early this year (before the
election) said that at least $18
million a year was needed for
reforestation. But the forest
industry which reaps the profits
from cutting down our forests,
spent only $1.8 million in 1971.

This latter fact points to where
the problem lies. When the
present forest licence legis-
lation was first enacted more
than 20 years ago it was done
under the guise that by giving pri-
ate companies huge tracts of
Crown forests at a cent an acre
per year in return for carrying
out adequate reforestation that
we would thereby ensure a “‘per-
petual yield”’ of trees.

The theory was that private
companies, when granted a tree
farm licence, would then have an
interest in carrying through
adequate reforestation and that
through this means we would
ensure that B.C. would have per-
manently restocked forest lands.
B.C.’s forest policy was andis to
this day based on that theory.

See FOREST RIP OFF, pg. 12

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