Yukon municipalities say out-of-town residents are getting more than they pay for with taxes
CBC
Yukon municipalities are suggesting that it may be time for people living outside municipal boundaries to start paying more taxes.
The Association of Yukon Communities (AYC) passed a resolution in 2023 to urge the territorial government to "review current property taxes in areas peripheral to Yukon municipalities, and increase those taxes appropriately."
"This has been a resolution that comes up repeatedly at AYC," said Dawson City Mayor Bill Kendrick, who moved the resolution.
"It's not an easy subject and nobody likes to pay taxes or nobody likes to see increased taxes, but it's something all governments and all people are grappling with."
Kendrick says his town is dealing with higher and higher costs associated with providing municipal services. The idea behind the resolution is that people living just outside municipal boundaries often benefit from those services without always paying their share.
"I think there's just general knowledge out there that peripheral taxes are significantly lower than inside-municipality taxes," Kendrick said.
"A lot of Yukon communities have a concern that, you know, people wanna move in and they wanna live just out of town, they wanna pay lower taxes. And it's the municipality that continues to be burdened with, you know, clearing snow to people's places of work, providing recreation facilities, having the cost of water treatment centres."
AYC president Ted Laking, who's also a Whitehorse city councillor, said it's not just a question of raising taxes. He suggests a change to how municipalities are funded by the territory, through the Comprehensive Municipal Grant.
"Municipalities are increasingly telling the government of Yukon, 'look, we're happy to provide services to all Yukoners, but it does cost us money to do this,'" Laking said.
"There is a strong case that we need to have that addressed through our funding formula from the government of Yukon, to help cover some of those costs."
The Comprehensive Municipal Grant was established by the territorial government in 1991, as a way to provide annual, unconditional funding to help Yukon's eight incorporated municipalities provide basic services to residents.
Grants in 2023 ranged from $1.4 million for Teslin, to $8.5 million for Whitehorse. The territorial government announced in October that municipalities will see a ten per cent increase in grant funding in 2024.
Richard Mostyn, Yukon's minister of Community Services, said that increasing taxes for residents living outside municipal boundaries needs more explicit support from the AYC.
"I'm a little bit reluctant to raise taxes in this environment, but that's one of the motions that AYC put before me and I'm just looking for their support to bring that about. I'll need some some letters of support, some work on the part of AYC, to actually make that happen," Mostyn said.
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