Nanaimo Tax Base Shows Interesting Details

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Total Residential Taxes Do NOT

Cover Cost of Wages & Benefits

In an article in the local Daily reporting on the unpaid civic tax bills this year, the following statistics were reported:

• Residential taxpayers, pay 68% of total taxes, paying $60.5 million
• Commercial taxpayers pay 29% of total taxes, paying $25.8 million
• Industrial taxpayers pay 3% of total taxes, paying $2.5 million.

I remember an old boss of mine, when I was just a young pup who told me "figures don't lie, and liars don't figure'. For some reason that has always stuck and I have always enjoyed looking to see what figures could tell me.

To the casual passerby the above numbers may not even be worth a second glance, and in fact I suspect cause a great number of eyes to simply glaze over.

Total wages and benefits paid to all classes of people working for the city including firefighters and RCMP now exceeds $70 million. The total of all taxes paid by the residential taxpayer is $9.5 million less than what is needed to just pay city wages and benefits. No shiny new firetrucks, water or sewer pipe and as we all know, certainly no sidewalks.

The next highest contributing tax sector is the commercial taxpayer who pays 29% of the total and contribute $25.8 million to the total tax 'purse' of $89.5 million. This is an impressive total if you consider this represents 1,736 ratepayers in total compared with 33,785 residential ratepayers.

Our industrial tax base while not insignificant is certainly close to being so given it is a mere 3% of the total and only $2.5 million. This is coming from a total of 91 ratepayers in this category.

What The Numbers Don't Make Clear

What the above numbers do not make readily apparent is the fact that much of the taxes paid by the Commercial ratepayers comes from income they earn selling their product or service to local residents. So it can be assumed that a large percentage of the taxes paid by the commercial taxpayer are in fact really paid by the residential taxpayers who support these businesses.

The only taxes being paid by the commercial sector that are not indirectly paid by the Nanaimo residential taxpayer would come from sales to non-Nanaimo residents. For example tourists and people who come into Nanaimo from out of town. I suspect however, that the lion's share of local commercial income does in fact come from local residents.