Burnaby Homeowners face tax increase

Burnaby Homeowners face tax increase

http://www2.canada.com/burnabynow/news/story.html?id=c0db8a72-7283-4721-b996-58c8b745a322

Summary:
The Canadian government decided to raise the tax rate of burnaby homeowners by 3.95 percent. The original intension was for a higher tax rate, but further discussion has brought down the tax rate from 4.37 to 3.95. The decision is base on fundings needed to operate service sectors. In a statement made by the mayor of burnaby,he stated that,"Considering what we offer to citizens (in services), ... I think it's the lowest we can do without looking at what services to cut or what staff to cut."
This means that in order to fund the different services that burnaby residents enjoy you have no choice but to pay higher taxes, otherwise they may have to face the consequences of losing some of their public services.

Connection:
This article links with Chapter 4 Government in Canada, because it talks about the burnaby homeowners facing an increase in porperty tax. Property tax is an direct tax that imposed on the person who is intended to pay the tax.The purpose of collecting porperty tax is to use the tax to provide public services for residents. In the summary, the quote that the mayor stated was linked to the equalization payment for federal/Provincial Financial Arragements. Equalization payment means that the payments to the provinces to ensure the provinces can provide a equal amount or reasonable level of public services without raising too many taxes. In this case, the raise of the porperty tax in burnaby was to balance the public services, which in the case that the payment was not enough to cover the full expense of the public services.

Reflection:
It is really unfair that the canadian governemtn raised the property tax in burnaby with out rasing the services. The mayor made the point saying that even though they are raising taxes, the porperty tax in burnaby is still lower than metrotown and vancouver area.But I think this point is unjustify because burnaby is not a commercial area. The services in metrotown and vancouver area are in a larger scale because they are providing more services and serving more people on the daily bases. For example, if you compare the number of buses that travel to Metrotown and Vancouver with the number of buses that travel to Burnaby, it is obvious why Vancouver and Metrotown area have a higher tax rate. Therefore, I believe it is unreasonable to compare the tax rate to these areas.