Deliverables

The Property Tax Distribution Commission is asked to report to Council on the following items.

3.1    Assessment of Current Policies – Review the City of Vancouver’s current property tax policies, and analyse the impact of these policies on Vancouver’s business, industrial and residential taxpayers, highlighting key issues and identifying any inequities. Include as part of this work the following:

a.      Evaluation Criteria – Recommend to Council the appropriate criteria to use to assess the fairness of the City’s property tax policies. The Commission can use as a starting point the evaluation criteria set out in the April 1994 Task Force on Property Taxation Report to Council.Evaluation criteria may include benefits received, ability to pay, equal treatment of equals, accountability, stability and predictability of taxes for an individual property from year to year, cost of administering and collecting the tax, socioeconomic impacts of the tax and/or impact of the tax on the competitiveness of Vancouver businesses.

b.      Appropriate Measures – Recommend to Council the appropriate measures to use in order to assess the impact of the City’s property tax policies on taxpayers within each of the City’s property classes, to determine the fairness of the City’s property tax policies, and to understand the impact of Vancouver’s property taxes on commercial competitiveness. The Commission is asked to select measures that can be calculated using supportable, proven methodology, and to ensure that any comparisons made between Vancouver and other cities are meaningful, taking into account the considerable differences among municipalities in property tax and assessment systems, methodologies, market values and property types.

3.2    Fair Tax Target Distribution Target – Recommend to Council a definition of a “fair tax,” expressed as a set of target percentage shares of the City’s property tax levy among the various property classes.

3.3    Implementation Strategy – Recommend a strategy that would allow Council to arrive at the recommended fair tax distribution target, with specific timelines identified.

3.4    Long-Term Policy and Mechanism – Recommend to Council a long-term policy and mechanism that would allow Council to permanently maintain a fair tax distribution among the City’s property classes.

3.5    Strategy for Enhanced Stability and Predictability – Assess the causes of the negative tax impacts of year-over-year land value changes for properties located in market “hot spots,” where forces such as market activity or zoning changes lead to a rapid increase in property taxes for certain properties, and recommend to Council measures that could be implemented to mitigate these impacts, for both residential and non-residential properties.