Skip to content

Council denies rowing club relief for $9,600 in tax arrears

THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay Rowing Club is going to have to pay its taxes. City council avoided setting a precedent on Monday by voting to support its administration and against providing the rowing club relief on $9,600 in tax arrears.
392744_29902462
Coun. Iain Angus attempts to persuade his city council colleagues to conduct a systemic review of municipal taxation and non-profit, community organizations. The issue stemmed from a Thunder Bay Rowing Club request to forgive $9,600 in tax arrears. (Photo by Jon Thompson, tbnewswatch.com)

THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay Rowing Club is going to have to pay its taxes.

City council avoided setting a precedent on Monday by voting to support its administration and against providing the rowing club relief on $9,600 in tax arrears.

“We open that door and we’re going to have every organization in the city coming to us,” said Coun. Brian McKinnon.

“If there’s something down the road and we want to revisit it, fine. But this report as presented, it was very clear to me.”

Coun. Iain Angus attempted to persuade council to refer the issue back to administration a second time for what he called a “full review of the overall approach” the city takes to taxing community organizations that lease property from the municipality.

“I could use the example of the Boys and Girls Club,” Angus proposed.

“We provide ‘X’ number of dollars per year to them as a grant in order to provide a service on property they own and here we are, in effect charging another community service group, albeit a smaller one, just because they happen to rent from us. I think we need to take a broader look at this.”

Although Angus was able to find a seconder for the motion in Coun. Larry Hebert, he couldn’t convince his colleagues to explore the municipal taxation of non-profit groups on a systemic level.

Administration stuck to the facts in its report.

“When non-profit organizations are leasing property from a private enterprise, the taxes fall in the commercial class. The difference is substantial,” said Rob Colquhoun, the city’s general manager of corporate services.

“The taxes would be $2,300 leased from the city, compared to $5,800 if it was leased from a private organization. The intent of the charitable rebate is to offset some of that differential so the net impact, even though tenants leasing from a private sector organization would still be paying more taxes than leasing from the city.” 





push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks