When all tax levies are taken into account, an average residential homeowner in Penticton can expect to pay about $21 more than last year.
After working through each department, Penticton ended up with a $30,008,576 tax requirement 2017, working out to a 4.36 per cent tax increase. Council voted unanimously this week to give three readings to the 2017 tax bylaw, locking that in.
According to the B.C. Assessment Authority, Penticton has had a large increase in the value of residential properties to almost $6.25 billion. Most of the increase comes from residential ($393.2 million) with business properties rising in value by $42.1 million.
That discrepancy means the real world tax increase is about 5.46 per cent for residential property owners.
“When there is an imbalance between the classes like that, the classes that are growing faster absorbs more of the (tax) change,” said revenue supervisor Amber Coates.
But when all the taxes levied against Penticton property owners — Regional District Okanagan Similkameen, Hospital District, School District 67— are calculated, the overall increase turns out to be 1.18 per cent, or $21 more for the “average” $368,202 home.
Coates points out that individual tax bills will be based on that assessment: if your assessment didn’t change, you will see less of an increase than someone who assumes that rose considerably.
“I wish there was a simple one sentence way of explaining that,” said Mayor Andrew Jakubeit.
