Saanich council approved a tax hike, but do they really need it?
Even if Saanich council did not raise the current mill rate, which is about 0.67 per cent, the municipality could possible have a budget surplus. It depends on whether council uses the BC Liberal government’s 2017 actual total value of assessed property in Saanich in making up the budget for 2017.
A small-scale example shows how this can happen. Our 2016 property tax was about $4,700 based on the property being assessed at $707,000 with a mill rate of 0.67 per cent. In 2017 the assessed value was increased 34 per cent to $947,000. If the same 0.67 per cent is applied to the $947,000 the property tax will increase to $6,345. Not everyone’s assessed value increased this much. However, most owners of property in Saanich have had the assessed value increased by 10 per cent or more. If the same situation as hypothesized above comes true then the property tax revenue for Saanich would increase by 10 per cent or much more than the proposed 3.53 per cent increase of the Saanich tax hike.
This raises a basic question regarding the provincial Liberal government’s exceptional increase in property assessment values. The government claims this situation was a result of increased value of real estate sales. However, it is suggested the government has been very selective in choosing the data to arrive at this conclusion. The average sale value for a single family dwelling in Greater Victoria was $840,000 in the second quarter of 2016, however, the average value of a single family dwelling sold at some other time in the assessment year of July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016 was about $700,000.
Incidentally, the $240,000 increase in the value of our property was due to a $240,000 increase in the value of the land.
David Ward
Saanich