I was just thinking about this about an hour ago. My rent went up almost $5000 dollars per year on 1200 square feet in the NW .... and that was after the landlord appealed.
It is going to be a rough time for some small businesses out there. The tax increase is going to head to residential soon
I was just thinking about this about an hour ago. My rent went up almost $5000 dollars per year on 1200 square feet in the NW .... and that was after the landlord appealed.
It is going to be a rough time for some small businesses out there. The tax increase is going to head to residential soon
Similar story here. The property tax on our small office is looking to steadily climb just outside the core.
The fact of the matter was that when times were good you could gouge major international corporations but when times are rough small independent businesses cant sustain massive cost hikes like this.
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Not sure were to post this but thought it was relevant to CP. The city is sitting with a massive tax short fall from all the vacant buildings downtown. The assessed values of these properties have dropped by the billions of dollars in the last handful of years and now the city is trying to shift the tax burden to suburban commercial owners who are generally small private groups. For some these PT bills are forcing them to close their door. Street front retail is by far the hardest hit with a number filing for bankruptcy or just walking away from their lease agreements. Anecdotally I've had a client who owns a small office building in the NW property tax bill jump from $33,000 to $70,000 over a two year period.
Why this matters to you is that there will be an inevitable shift from commercial property to residential property to make up the tax short fall. Calgary already has the biggest commercial vs residential tax gap of any city in the province at 1:4.14 and it isn't sustainable. I suspect that residential taxes will significantly increase in Calgary in the coming years as business push back on their assessments and demand a normalised commercial vs residential tax gap of 1:2.
chickens come home to roost eventually in an oil and gas driven economy.
The anger of the stupidity of all this BS will not be restrained to just those that work in the industry downtown. Buckle up everyone but let your minds at ease and remember, at least 75 orcas maybe possibly could be saved from extremely dubious thought processes and logic exercises.
Moving out of our office space and back to remote work from home was one of the best decisions we made last year. If you're able to carry out your work from home or spread out the cost between businesses at a co-working space you should. Reduce office space and let people who can work from home do so. We would use our board room sparingly and client meetings were easily moved to their offices/spaces. Throw in an hour of commuting time saved.
We're saving $40-50k a year at 2017 prices. I can only imagine what they would have been this year.
Except everyone screams and yells when their sacred services are cut. Of course they also scream and yell because taxes are too high.
Okay, but at the same time we have to understand that if you choke the hell out of the tax base you're going to drive businesses into the ground and then you'll get nothing.
It makes far more sense to evenly distribute the tax requirement in a smoother mix between groups than to so overburden one that you're driving them into failure.
Do you think outrageous Property Taxes have no impact whatsoever on downtown vacancies? Perhaps Property Taxes are so high because Downtown is vacant and downtown is vacant because Property Taxes are so high?
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Except everyone screams and yells when their sacred services are cut. Of course they also scream and yell because taxes are too high.
Spending at the City has far outpaced population growth + inflation.
Yet my services are exactly the same, or worse, than before. Many city staff enjoy two or more pension payments. Nenshi is the highest paid mayor in all of Canada.
Okay, but at the same time we have to understand that if you choke the hell out of the tax base you're going to drive businesses into the ground and then you'll get nothing.
It makes far more sense to evenly distribute the tax requirement in a smoother mix between groups than to so overburden one that you're driving them into failure.
Do you think outrageous Property Taxes have no impact whatsoever on downtown vacancies? Perhaps Property Taxes are so high because Downtown is vacant and downtown is vacant because Property Taxes are so high?
I don't disagree with you. My point was many people complain their taxes are too high but are the same one who complain when services are cut. We cannot have it both ways (this applies to Albertan's too although we also seem to be in denial about that). Sure the City needs to look at spending but there is also only so much they can do. And business is being choked by what has happened downtown. So what do we do? Probably spread some of the shortfall from business onto homeowner/individual tax. Honestly our taxes are pretty low compared to other cities. I hate a tax increase as much as they next person but we're going to have to pay the piper one way or another.
I think in aggregate the tax base is fine. There are things that could be cut (all the salt they've put on the roads this year, for example). The big issue is it isn't distributed fairly. Businesses are paying too much and residential too little. And I say that as someone who pays multiple residential tax bills and no commercial taxes at all.
I think in aggregate the tax base is fine. There are things that could be cut (all the salt they've put on the roads this year, for example). The big issue is it isn't distributed fairly. Businesses are paying too much and residential too little. And I say that as someone who pays multiple residential tax bills and no commercial taxes at all.
Calgary has been one of the more spendy cities though IIRC. Would be tough to keep that up if you are shifting more to the residential/individual. Which is why they haven't made the shift quicker IMO.
Calgary has been one of the more spendy cities though IIRC. Would be tough to keep that up if you are shifting more to the residential/individual. Which is why they haven't made the shift quicker IMO.
I don't disagree, I think the right solution is probably a mix of spending cuts and tax base reallocations.
That's super unpopular though, because it increases the headline residential tax rate increase.
Spending at the City has far outpaced population growth + inflation.
Yet my services are exactly the same, or worse, than before. Many city staff enjoy two or more pension payments. Nenshi is the highest paid mayor in all of Canada.
Weird.
This isn’t true for operations.
Operational spending has been held at pop growth plus inflation so you would expect services to remain relatively constant. (All numbers posted in the municipal election thread). Where we have seen tax increases is from the Capital Spending side.
So it isn’t a question of if services have improved or gotten worse. It’s was the West LRT, Green Line, Library, etc worse the tax increases to fund them.
Operational spending has been held at pop growth plus inflation so you would expect services to remain relatively constant. (All numbers posted in the municipal election thread). Where we have seen tax increases is from the Capital Spending side.
So it isn’t a question of if services have improved or gotten worse. It’s was the West LRT, Green Line, Library, etc worse the tax increases to fund them.
City of Calgary Operational spending has increased faster than pop growth plus inflation as measured by statistics Canada.
The City prefers to use their own made-up inflation numbers to hide how much more they are spending. Furthermore they control the rise of these inflation numbers as a huge component of their own calculation is the city's salaries. It makes no sense at all, unless your goal is to obfuscate the discussion.
Let's all be honest and use the standard accepted definition of inflation?
Spending at the City has far outpaced population growth + inflation.
Yet my services are exactly the same, or worse, than before. Manycity staff enjoy two or more pension payments. Nenshi is the highest paid mayor in all of Canada.
And it is exempt form property tax. Now, it's tough to tell from the city implication, but I think all the grass, the parking etc are all church land, it says they are all except. That's over $6 million in assessed value, which is around $30 000 in taxes. Develop that and your probably at $12 million or more. The city gives that up every year. Multiply that by all the church land in the city and it starts to hit real numbers. Maybe they should pay taxes like the rest of us...
