2016 property tax increases

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by ken0042

What services are you referring to? Off the top of my head I can't think of any.

Garbage collection would be one, for example. Internal road maintenance would be another.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by polak

You're calling them a tone deaf government because they're doing exactly what they said they would when the majority of the province voted for them?

Just to be clear, the majority of the province voted for other parties. They won the majority of the ridings, but did not have the support of the majority of the voters. They won 40.6% of the popular vote.

To be fair, I am not aware of an election in Canada in my lifetime where somebody won the majority of the vote. Even Mulroney's "landslide" win in 1984 only got the PCs something like 49.5% of the vote.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Garbage collection would be one, for example. Internal road maintenance would be another.

Garbage isn't part of taxes either, collection is a line item on my Enmax bill. However both of our garbage still gets processed at the same landfill; which is part of the tax.

The city also does not maintain my driveway for me; so they would not maintain the roads on your complex's private property either. Nor would they maintain the parking lot of a mall. However our taxes all go towards maintaining the public roads that we all drive, walk, or take transit on.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by polak

Full blown Communism is quite different than increasing taxes to subsidize healthcare, education, welfare and infrastructure upgrades.

uuuuuuum.......there must be something lost in translation here

[Coach]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

USSR - United Socialist Soviet Republic. The two are very close. Don't believe me? Ask the ndp a socialist party and check out the leap manifesto, the line between socialist and communist starts getting blurred. The principles are similar, not equal, similar.

The Leap Manifesto is a whole pile of garbage. Any person of any political leaning should be able to see that.

There are a lot of similarities, but the main difference is the one you are so concerned about: the free market.

Socialism allows the free market outside of services the people deem essential (healthcare, infrastructure maintenance, etc..). Those things will vary by nation. It uses tax to try and offset the inequalities that the free market ends up creating.

Communism is centralized everything. No free market. No real taxes. You work for the state and are paid a flat allowance, the same (or close to the same) as everyone else and/or provided the basics.

You can hate both of them if you want, but they are not the same thing, particularly in the way they approach economics. But you also need to understand that socialism in one place is not the same as socialism in another place. Canada has very socialist policies in place, so does Sweden, but they are very different. Communism is communism. There's not really a way to do it differently.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by MattyC

The Leap Manifesto is a whole pile of garbage. Any person of any political leaning should be able to see that.

There are a lot of similarities, but the main difference is the one you are so concerned about: the free market.

Socialism allows the free market outside of services the people deem essential (healthcare, infrastructure maintenance, etc..). Those things will vary by nation. It uses tax to try and offset the inequalities that the free market ends up creating.

Communism is centralized everything. No free market. No real taxes. You work for the state and are paid a flat allowance, the same (or close to the same) as everyone else and/or provided the basics.

You can hate both of them if you want, but they are not the same thing, particularly in the way they approach economics. But you also need to understand that socialism in one place is not the same as socialism in another place. Canada has very socialist policies in place, so does Sweden, but they are very different. Communism is communism. There's not really a way to do it differently.

Under communism tax is essentially 100%. Everything is paid for and owned by the government. Socialism is for more government control and more public services but not full like in communism. They are from from the same tree.

There are a lot of similarities. Communism is for a classless society and socialism is for the redistribution of wealth. The carbon tax is a redistribution of wealth.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Garbage isn't part of taxes either, collection is a line item on my Enmax bill. However both of our garbage still gets processed at the same landfill; which is part of the tax.

The city also does not maintain my driveway for me; so they would not maintain the roads on your complex's private property either. Nor would they maintain the parking lot of a mall. However our taxes all go towards maintaining the public roads that we all drive, walk, or take transit on.

Condominiums are charged the same rates for garbage on their utility bills as fee-simple owners. Municipal fees collected through Enmax include collection. Condominiums use private companies for collection and are still charged for and contributing full fees to municipal. Some of their garbage goes to private landfills where they pay additional fees for disposal. Some may go to municipal landfills where they also pay for disposal at the time.

A row of fee-simple townhomes on a public street - city pays for that street maintenance. A row of condominium townhomes on a private street - condo-corp pays for the street maintenance, but get zero credit from the overall property tax amount they pay.

[Zarley]

Originally Posted by polak

Really, you think the average person would invest incremental small savings of a few dollars? I have a hard time believing that. Maybe I'm not understanding how the tax works but if they're just getting a cut on their income tax of a literally tens of dollars, I do not think that the average is investing it. I think it's being spent on goods and services that are just moving the carbon footprint down the line.

Ah okay, so all of this baseless conjecture is just a gut feeling of yours? If you had read the articles I've posted, you would know that the tax has been successful in altering consumption patterns significantly.

You're also forgetting that the majority of non-government spending that occurs is business spending. Firms in general do not make foolish and wasteful spending decisions. Even if 50% of individuals are spending their newfound tax savings rather than investing, we can say that the majority of tax savings will be invested in projects to facilitate growth.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Under communism tax is essentially 100%. Everything is paid for and owned by the government. Socialism is for more government control and more public services but not full like in communism. They are from from the same tree.

There are a lot of similarities. Communism is for a classless society and socialism is for the redistribution of wealth. The carbon tax is a redistribution of wealth.

Yeah. You basically just regurgitated what I said.

So a carbon tax is a form of Socialism, not Communism. Concepts you seem to be able to determine the difference between, but not willing to actually say they are different?

[polak]

Originally Posted by Zarley

Ah okay, so all of this baseless conjecture is just a gut feeling of yours? If you had read the articles I've posted, you would know that the tax has been successful in altering consumption patterns significantly.

You're also forgetting that the majority of non-government spending that occurs is business spending. Firms in general do not make foolish and wasteful spending decisions. Even if 50% of individuals are spending their newfound tax savings rather than investing, we can say that the majority of tax savings will be invested in projects to facilitate growth.

I didn't read your original post because I wasn't arguing against carbon tax? I'm full bore for carbon tax I just don't like BC's system as it's not ensuring that money is going towards fixing the problem.

Motor Vehicle use dropped a lot less than the overall numbers (0.5% down in BC over 1.6% increase ROC). I wonder where the biggest change is coming from then? Do you know where the data came from? If it's down because of alternative energy being used by industry than attributing the drop in fossil fuels use to the tax is misleading. I'd also be curious to see yearly data and how it corresponds to macro factors not just an 8 year figure.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by ken0042

To be fair, I am not aware of an election in Canada in my lifetime where somebody won the majority of the vote. Even Mulroney's "landslide" win in 1984 only got the PCs something like 49.5% of the vote.

Where are you getting that from?
Says they got 50.03% from what I can find.
http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/c...ultsParty.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadi...election,_1984

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Yeah. You basically just regurgitated what I said.

So a carbon tax is a form of Socialism, not Communism. Concepts you seem to be able to determine the difference between, but not willing to actually say they are different?

No I'm not willing to say they are different because different is capitalism ideals compared to socialist ones. There's so many policies that go hand in hand between socialism and communism like more public services and government ownership and more balance between the rich and the poor, more social welfare.

Basically in socialism and communism the government takes care of the people. One more and one less. It's related. Capitalism is the opposite to socialist ideas.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by polak

I'm full bore for carbon tax I just don't like BC's system as it's not ensuring that money is going towards fixing the problem.

um...

and Alberta's carbon tax is going towards fixing the problem? It's being proven that it won't reduce Alberta's carbon footprint. It's been labeled as wealth redistribution. They're basically giving money to low and middle income earners and taxing the rich and buissness's. They are buying people's votes with cheques. Do you not find it strange that they are giving money to their voter base?

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by polak

I didn't read your original post because I wasn't arguing against carbon tax? I'm full bore for carbon tax I just don't like BC's system as it's not ensuring that money is going towards fixing the problem.

Motor Vehicle use dropped a lot less than the overall numbers (0.5% down in BC over 1.6% increase ROC). I wonder where the biggest change is coming from then? Do you know where the data came from? If it's down because of alternative energy being used by industry than attributing the drop in fossil fuels use to the tax is misleading. I'd also be curious to see yearly data and how it corresponds to macro factors not just an 8 year figure.

He's told you multiple times where the biggest change is coming from, the carbon tax in BC is revenue neutral.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

He's told you multiple times where the biggest change is coming from, the carbon tax in BC is revenue neutral.

What? I mean what fuel is driving the supposed 16% drop in usage vs the ROC cause it isnt Motor Vehicle Fuel according to that article (it only went down 0.5% in 8 years.)

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by polak

What? I mean what fuel is driving the supposed 16% drop in usage vs the ROC cause it isnt Motor Vehicle Fuel according to that article (it only went down 0.5% in 8 years.)

The tax breaks in combination with the incentive to avoid further carbon levies is why you see the difference.

It's not about what fuel is used, the behavior change due to incentives is working. Also, the reduced taxes on corporations allows for them to explore improved alternatives that use less fuel. The way it's supposed to work.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

The tax breaks in combination with the incentive to avoid further carbon levies is why you see the difference.

It's not about what fuel is used, the behavior change due to incentives is working. Also, the reduced taxes on corporations allows for them to explore improved alternatives that use less fuel. The way it's supposed to work.

Until you know what fuel types were reduced by how much and when and how that lines up with other factors you have a whole lotta correlation without any causation...

Its very easy to say well fossil fuel use went down 16 percent in the 8 years since the carbon tax was implemented so it had to be all from the super carbon tax but if the vast majority of that drop came from an industry completely removing a certian fuel from their process or replaced it with another source of energy then its not really the carbon tax. Im just curious though cause that's a staggering number.

Doesn't really change my view either way. I'd prefer the carbon tax revenue went to reducing carbon in the air. Through incentives to purchase more fuel efficient cars or into research and development of alternative fuel sources... etc.

That would totally put me out of work by the way but my company seems to have its head in the sand, at least publically, about the downtrend in fossil fuel consumption in Canada and the US.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by polak

Until you know what fuel types were reduced by how much and when and how that lines up with other factors you have a whole lotta correlation without any causation...

Its very easy to say well fossil fuel use went down 16 percent in the 8 years since the carbon tax was implemented so it had to be all from the super carbon tax but if the vast majority of that drop came from an industry completely removing a certian fuel from their process or replaced it with another source of energy then its not really the carbon tax. Im just curious though cause that's a staggering number.

People are creatures of habit. To avoid getting boned in the wallet is a real human reaction. You will grow weary from tax as you age.

Sure, my whole take (and Zarley's as I understand it) might be garbage as you see it, but it's the correct message. You can be a total boyscout in BC and it won't cost the shirt off your back.

[polak]

Oh if these taxes keep going up I'm sure my personal survival will quickly outweigh my idealistic view points.

I guess I haven't been burned yet.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by polak

Oh if these taxes keep going up I'm sure my personal survival will quickly outweigh my idealistic view points.

I guess I haven't been burned yet.

For sure. What I really hope you take to heart is that many are OK with a tax, any tax.

The problems arise when you start to demotivate your population. The NDP is taxing food banks FFS. I know you're just as irate as anyone about things they have done, but this is just inexcusable. Poor people can't reduce their carbon footprint. Many laid off people might need the food bank.

The worst is the revisionist criticism. Shouldn't have bought that TV/RV/whatever. Buyers remorse is also a real thing. We aren't robots.