restling wi WELCOME to West Vancouver: Jand of tax revolutionaries. Rill and Jo Ann Wedley: meet West Vancouver parent Richard Kinar. You folks might not know cach other burt you have much in common — chief of which is your aversion to taxation, the double-dipping variety increasingly engaged in by Canada’s senior levels of gov- ernment. There are few tax fans in this part of Canada, which remains taxed black and blue by bureaucratic bloodsuckers trom coast to coast. Bur there are fewer willing to do much about their tax burden. The aforementioned trio, however, are. Anyone with an axe to grind over the GST, which annually drains approximately $20 billion from Canadian taxpayer pockets, will have . applauded long and loud this month after reading a Feb. 9 story by News editor Michael Becker. In it he relates the Wedleys’ victory, after five years, over misguided B.C. Property assessment practices and another insidious use of the GST to inflate our already criminal tax load. The West Vancouver con- miaiivax ripping yarns dominium owners challenged the government’s inclusion of GST in the assessed value of their Deer Ridge Drive home. {n its Feb. 2 decision, the Property Assessment Appeal Board countered a previous decision in the case and ruled that the GST is not part of market value when a new property is first purchased. It also found holes in the assessor's appraisal methodol- ogy and determined that the assessor had been wrong in including GST on the report- ed prices of new properties. The Wedleys had initially paid close to $44,000 in GST on the purchase of their $600,000 West Vancouver condo. i that sting were not enough, the GST bill was added to the assessed value of the property ~~ which resulted in a tax — property taxes based on assessed value — being paid on a another tax — the loathsome GST, Thus the Wedlevs’ outrage and the start of their personal tax revolt. And the recent happy end- ing. The bad news is that the Feb, 2 ruling applies only to the Wedlevs’ case. Other citizens likewise aggrieved by having to pay a tax on another tax will have to jump through the same hoops as did the Wecileys every year. Most will have neither the expertise — Mr. Wedley being an SFU business professor — nor the stamina, fiscal or other, to wage that battle. The government, which weakly argues that vendors will recover GST when they sell their properties, will con- tinue to suck blood-money from them and everyone else via another blatantly unfait taxation scam. Me. Kinar, meanwhile, has waged a similar war, this one over the provincial sales tax (PST). Last year, the Caulfeild- area resident began asking the $2 million question: why does the provincial government charge PST on items that are purchased for schools through community and parent fundraising? His question became a cru- sade alter it was determined Assessment appeai issues . Dear Editor: I agree with the basic premise in your editorial of Feb. 11: the assessor is incor- rectly including GST in assessed values and the public must continue the fight to stop that practise. You make two points, how- ever, that seem to be ateribur- able to me that are not quite. correct. In - fairness to: the assessor and imyself, I think they need clarification. You say that the provincial government has a vested inter- est in not removing GST from assessments because the prop- erty transfer tax is bosed on market value. Your implication seems to be that provincial authorities © are calculating property transfer tax upon an amount that includes GST. - While this could happen in the furure and may rarely NO uith: : ag rd | auseticon, OM, Las ‘approved me occur at present, beth the property transfer tax and the GST are calculated on the true definition of market value (ic. the value exchanged between buyer and seller exclusive of any tax). This means that the provincial government is not charging tax on tax when col- lecting the property transfer tax. I note with interest, how- ever, that the authorities col- lecting the property transfer tax do not use the same defin- ition of market value as the assessor. One of them must be in error. I leave it to the reader to guess which one is wrong. The other clarification relates to your statement that B.C. Assessment has a vested interest in keeping assessed values as high as possible because they get .their cash flow from a proportion of the mill rate. While it is true that e & Filter 21 pt. Safety check,.15 minutes - FAST! Inctudes up to 5 litres of 10w30 Quakerstate 1362 Marine Drive 980-9115 Mon-Sat 8:00arn-6:00prn, Sun. 9:00am-5:00pm Expires Mar. 1 SB S.LAURSEN & SON draperies & blinds Itd. Serving the Lower Mainland for over 28 yeais www.sidrapesandblinds.com Custom Rods, Upholstery & Bedspreads {Ask about our Seniors Discount) For Free Estimate call 922-4975 or 987-2986 Drapery Labour $13.50 pee panel lined. how Low Prices all property owners see B.C. Assessment as one of the charges on their tax bill, it is not true chat B.C. Assessment gets more money by inflating the tax base. With prior approval of the lieutenant: governor in coun- cil, the assessment authority sets a budget to cover its annu- al operating and = capital expenses. That amount, like the amount each municipality needs for its operations, is col- lected via the mill rate. But in order to determine the mill rate, one must first know bozh the amounts needed and total assessed values (mill rate = amount needed/total assessed value). If the assessment roll is inflaied by the inclusion of [oa that B.C. parents had raised approximately $30 million in 1998 tor school supplies, which translated into $2.1 million in PST pocketed by the province from overbur- dened taxpayers who were being fleeced again on items they had purchased to shore up an ineffective and ill-run public education system. The issue remains unre- solved, but Kinar soldiers on with an ever-growing number of converts to the cause. Meanwhile, the publicly- funded tax bullies live in a Never-Never land free of mar- ketplace realities and account- ability. Citizens need look no fur- ther for examples of how their tax money is being squan- dered than the current Human Resources Development Canada job grants scandal and the approval of another $400 mil- lion in special spending war- rants by B.C."s fiscally retard- ed NDP government. In both cases, regard for tax dollars and the people who generate them fails at the very bottom of the political priority bin. The dwellers of communi- ties like West Vancouver are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. May their anger spread. clarified GST, the assessor's mill rate will be lower. With a lower mill rate on a higher toral assessed value, the amount the assessor receives remains the same. If the assessor has a vested interest, it occurs after the establishment of the assess- ment roll. If appeals are suc- cessful, the assessor's cash flows are smaller than antici- pated. Accordingly, it is at the appeal stage that that they encounter a conflict between need for money and the need for justice. Perhaps it is for this reason that the assessor rakes an intransigent stand on many appeals. William C. Wedley West Vancouver Sunday. February 20, 2000 — North Shore News ~ 7 th tax leeches and gag a3435 And here’s another win for the home team. It comes in the form ofa successful court challenge to the provincial government's Election Act gag law that Jim- its third-party advertising to $5,000 in provincial election campaigns. The News initially led the charge against the law in its pages back in the 1996 provincial election campaign. The cudgels were raken up by accountant Garry Nixon and Pacific Press, who chal- lenged the law in court. The resul.. a B.C. Supreme Court judge rightly ruied ear- lier this month that the adver- tising, spending limit placed an unwarranted infringement on free expression at one of the most crucial times in the life ofany democracy. But it’s a gag that both provincial and federal govern- ments keep trying to apply no matter how often citizens protest and how often the courts tell those governments that such spending fimits are and-demuocratic and unneces- | sary. jaws The established political Parties are intent on limiting discussion of issues during elections. [t's in their interests; not in ours, The federal government is set to launch another such gag under the guise of its Bill C-2. It deserves the same fate as its previous attempts at gaz- ging election expression. The politicians who insist on resurrecting such legisla- tion dese: ve a gag of their own -— to be applied in the public square after tar and feathers. —trenshaw@nsnews.con: we test — Clifford Framing Gallery Since 1945 1825 Ambleside Lane 922-7737 (Directly bebind Windsor sicats) sdploaphnenbertort rates I Join us for a Sicilian celebration at Barolo | staurant on re Feb. 23/00 at 6:00 pm | ANTIPASTO Arancini Di Riso Peperoni Ripieni-alla Trapanese Melanusane Ripieni PASTA Spaghetrini Di San Giuseppe Cou 1560 marine drive, west van RESERVATIONS 926-4228 open for lunch Mon: Fri and dinner 7 days Mallica Di Pane Fresee PIATTO FORTE Calamari Inbottiti Involtini Di Pesce Spada-Alla Patermitana DOLCE Mpignutata. 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