Calgary Minute: Tax Hikes, Tax Deferrals, and Business Closures

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

This Week In Calgary:

• Happy Easter Monday. There is no council meeting scheduled for this week. Despite the many cancellations in recent weeks due to COVID-19, this is actually just a planned break due to the holiday.
  
  
• On Wednesday there will be a meeting of the Standing Policy Committee on Utilities and Corporate Services. The Committee will be updated on the Residential Black Cart Collection Mixed Service Delivery Pilot Project, the City's Climate Resilience Strategy, and the 2019 Flood Resiliency and Mitigation Annual Report, along with many other agenda items.
  
  
• On Thursday there will be a Calgary Planning Commission meeting. The commission will be reviewing several land use amendments and will receive updates on two reports in-camera including the Historic East Calgary Local Area Plan.

Last Week In Calgary:

• Council voted to confirm their planned 7.5% tax hike despite the immense pressure residents and businesses are currently under. A proposal to use surplus funds from the City's public art program and corporate welfare slush fund to cancel the increase for 2020 failed by a vote of 2-3. The two Councillors in favour were Jeremy Farkas and Sean Chu.
  
  
• Despite voting to confirm the 7.5% tax increase, Council did vote for a "tax deferral plan". Instead of annual property taxes being due in July, residents now have until September to pay. If you're on the City's Tax Instalment Payment Plan (TIPP) you can leave the program to benefit from the delay and then rejoin later without any fees. Of course, a tax deferral isn't really tax "relief", as the City is trying to claim.
  
  
• Calgary's bars and restaurants are amongst those businesses struggling immensely with either temporary or permanent closure due to the pandemic. While restaurants can sell food via delivery, restaurants and bars are a notoriously low profit-margin industry. As one owner said: "The reality is most people in the restaurant business are out of business — forever."

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