Cracking down on lease holders
Village takes hard-line to tax dodgers
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, July 9, 2015
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
The village's annual tax sale will go ahead as planned on Oct. 1 but the decision has missed the heart of Fort Simpson's tax problems.
Mayor Sean Whelly told the rest of council he intends to paint a "bulls-eye" on lease holders who have not been paying their taxes. Lease holders, he said, are the worst offenders for this because the village has few avenues for recovering unpaid taxes from them. - April Hudson/NNSL photo
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The village spent the past two months discussing how to rectify the large amount of money owed to Fort Simpson in arrears, but after plans were finalized for the tax sale to go ahead, the largest arrears offenders were not on the
sale.
Deputy Mayor Stella Nadia said that is because many residents owing arrears lease their land from the government and are not actually landowners.
"I'm having a change of heart. I look at this list and the wrong people are on here - the ones who owe a lot on their taxes are not," Nadia said.
"It defeats the purpose of why we opened up this can of worms to begin with."
It is more difficult for the village to pursue leaseholders who owe back taxes because the lease is administered by the GNWT Department of Lands, not by Fort Simpson.
Beth Jumbo, the village's senior administrative officer, said although Fort Simpson has been told there is a clause in the leases requiring leaseholders to pay taxes, the village likely cannot obtain an actual copy of a lease to review, due to privacy concerns.
That leaves Fort Simpson with two options: go through a lengthy, costly court process to obtain a judgement enabling the village to seize leaseholders' assets, or pressure the lands department to deal with the situation.
"There is argument to be made that the territorial government has let those leaseholders off the hook by not ensuring they pay their taxes. They should have been told years ago they would lose their lease," said Mayor Sean Whelly.
"I think we can start bringing this up with the Minister of Lands and see what they're going to do to help us to make sure we do collect the money owing on these properties."
The village intends to notify the department of all leased properties that are in tax arrears.
"We are going to start putting a big bulls-eye on those not paying," Whelly said.
"There has to be something done."
On Oct. 1, the tax sale auction will go ahead in the village office starting at 10 a.m. The tax sale list includes everyone with unpaid arrears up to Dec. 31, 2013.
