Parking tax is ‘dead,’ but cash need lives on
Business leaders may have been a bit quick to celebrate the demise of TransLink’s hated parking stall tax.
Although the TransLink governance review decided to eliminate the year-old tax, the fine print shows the $17-million it generates is to still be raised from business sources.
The net revenue from the tax “should instead be raised through TransLink’s property tax levy from commercial, industrial and utility classes,” the panel’s recommendation says.
“This will result in a fairer distribution of the tax over a broader base of commercial, industrial and utility property owners, and reduce overall taxes as substantial administration costs will be avoided.”
The Park the Tax Coalition was quick to applaud transportation minister Kevin Falcon’s commitment last week to follow the recommendation and kill the tax.
But coalition spokesman Ted Williams admitted he doesn’t know how much retailers stung by the parking tax will still end up paying in higher replacement property tax.
“It’s unclear to me exactly how it’s going to work,” he said. “There’s not a lot of details on how that will happen.”
He said it appears retailers may pay less overall, and more of what they did pay in parking tax may be spread to other businesses and utilities that have smaller-than-average parking lots.
Williams said the coalition of businesses that formed to fight the tax mainly wants to thank the province for moving to terminate it.
He said it was a symptom of what’s wrong with the current TransLink governance system, adding the new system will work much better.
“The win here is that the expensive-to-administer parking tax is gone,” Williams said. “That saves the industry money and that saves TransLink money.”
He also noted there’s now an extra three cents a litre in fuel taxes available to the reformed TransLink that should reduce pressure to raise property taxes in future.
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