Anton introducing motion to end Occupy Vancouver

Forget the riot squad - send in the taxman

Politicians dithering about how to deal with Occupy Vancouver protesters have been overlooking at least one legal option.

Because the law of the land already provides a ready-made solution to the city’s dilemma about what to do about the no-end-in-sight protest on the Vancouver Art Gallery lawn. It may not provide a mechanism to move the protesters along, but it does provide — indeed, the wording appears to require — action that would help the city recover the cost of dealing with them.

Under normal circumstances, the publicly owned art gallery land is exempt from city property taxes. But this changes as soon as Crown land is occupied by a taxable person or company, says Paul Sullivan, the property tax guru from Burgess Cawley Sullivan who co-chairs the technical committee of the Vancouver Fair Tax Coalition.

“As soon as it is occupied by anybody who is not exempt, it becomes taxable,” he told me. “There’s no minimum time for the occupation.”

Provincial law, he said, requires the provincial assessment authority to add the market value of the occupied land to the city’s tax roll, and the city to tax the individuals who occupy it.

Sullivan’s associate, Peter Forward, said it’s difficult to speculate with confidence on how much the tax bill for the occupied property would be. The art gallery building is a heritage structure, which complicates any assessment of the total property, and since the building isn’t occupied by the protesters its value would have to be deducted from the property’s total assessment. And then a determination would have to be made of what percentage of the land is being occupied.

But he estimated the total value of the art gallery land at about $9 million, and he calculated that, if were assumed the occupiers had taken up a third of the land, the annual property taxes due would be about $57,000.

"Freakinoldguy" said
They won't. Watched an interview with a group in Occupy Victoria and when they were asked what they'd do if they were asked to move they said since they had nowhere else to go they's stay put till forcibly removed.

It's unfortunate that The Occupy Wall St movement has been corrupted by just about every anti establishment poltical faction, kook fringe and mommy told me I'm wonderful group on the planet.

What started out as a movement to stop corporate greed has become a movement to air any grievenaces legitimate or not. So the time has come to move them on.

Now the term Wall Nuts fits, much like Tea Baggers does for that other faction.

"ShepherdsDog" said
San Pedro II??

"Gunnair" said
They won't. Watched an interview with a group in Occupy Victoria and when they were asked what they'd do if they were asked to move they said since they had nowhere else to go they's stay put till forcibly removed.

It's unfortunate that The Occupy Wall St movement has been corrupted by just about every anti establishment poltical faction, kook fringe and mommy told me I'm wonderful group on the planet.

What started out as a movement to stop corporate greed has become a movement to air any grievenaces legitimate or not. So the time has come to move them on.

Now the term Wall Nuts fits, much like Tea Baggers does for that other faction.