Gee, it never ceases to amaze me how obtuse, stupid and near sighted bureaucrats/taxing authorities really are.

Of course, keeping the $3600.00 in his pocket to be spent elsewhere, such as children or grandchildren, and thus going back into the economy to create more economic activity. Why that is just backward.

Oh but no, the government knows how to spend your money better than you do.

Oh green friendly wind power, on your own property! Supporting energy efficient farms heavens no we can't have that.

Well you can't reap the benefits of that, you errant farmer. Once again we have the nanny state telling the farmer how to run his farm for the benefit of the state.

The windtower may be benefiting HIS property but it is benefiting the province because of his reduced reliance on state-provided energy. Or, is it that the state actually wants that revenue via its hydro energy, and if that is lost, it will regain the money via a property tax?

Does this mean that every energy-reducing renovation done to someone's house/farm will be met with an increase in property taxes? Does this mean that the provinces and municipalities are actively working against 'saving the environment'?

I think a note to the local newspapers, to the various environmental groups - and yes, to the federal gov't is required.

That tax increase is way out of line -- a $59,000 improvement like a new farm building won't get hit with anything like that kind of increase. I wonder if MPAC is valuing him for being off the electricity net. What do they do to people in SW Ontario who have their own natural gas wells? I know a few farms like that (near Waterford).

"I think a note to the local newspapers, to the various environmental groups - and yes, to the federal gov't is required."

I totally agree that this "property assessment" is asinine and shameful. But ceding local taxation powers to intervention by the federal government? That is very un-conservative of you - I guess a nanny state is okay if the nanny happens to fly the Tory flag.

ChrisR:

I wouldn't be surprised if MPAC is valuing this improvement as an income property - $3,600 per year at 6% cap rate is $60,000. Pure idiocy, but then again, this is MPAC's mandate under current value assessment.

If the Dorothy who submitted this article is reading this, can you provide a link to the article in the newspaper?

Duncan is just another in a long line of A##holes
that represent this Liberal Government in Ontario.
McGuinty, Smitherman, Duncan et al do nothing constructive. Just blindly spout the Liberal dogma.

I had to laugh when I saw this - the same thing happened in California during the pre-enron scandal blackouts while I was living down there. The state under Gray Davis had a campaign for water wheels, windmills ect but once people put them up - taxes beat out selling back to the utility companies. I don't know if Arnold has changed the laws or not.

Well if the government doesn't get you, the Indians will.

There's a massive windfarm in Shelburne, Ontario, and the local Indians are threatening to seize it:

w3://www.citizen.on.ca/news/2006/0810/Front_Page/001.html

I love this line:

"Historically, he says, the Iroquois captured all of Ontario (Huronia) from the Hurons, and then agreed with the British to allow European settlement - but did not surrender any land."

Hey Iroquois - what if the Huron allowed you to kill them, but they never surrendered the land?

truthseeker - the issue is not the rights of taxation between municipal and federal. The issue is the difference between a federal agenda of 'clean power' and a municipal rejection of local attempts to develop and use 'clean power'.

Here is some additional background on this story. Unfortunately, older articles are available by subscription only from the newspaper:

"Wind turbines were first taxed in 2004, after Ontario Finance Minister
Greg Sorbara defined them as generating stations, which are assessed for taxes."

"Heather Colquhoun, a spokesperson for the Municipal Property Assessment
Corporation, said wind turbines are permanent structures that improve a
property's value."

"But turbine owners can challenge their property assessment at a hearing
before Ontario's Assessment Review Board, Colquhoun said."

BTW - here is the MPAC list of property codes. Wind turbines are category #567.

http://www.mpac.ca/pages_english/municipalities/property_code_inventory.htm

Only the government would encourage alternate energy sources on one hand, and tax it out of existence with the other.

The assessment office has simply made a mistake.They are seeing the windmill as a building instead of equipment. It is simply a generator used to power the farm.

The municipality and MPAC could care less. They have their mandate to evaluate property values based on all factors with their incredibly complicated (and might I add proprietary, and not subject to scrutiny) "value" model. Whether it reflects reality or not is not up for discussion, and getting data out of them is virtually impossible. Trust me, I know.....

JCL

Good reportage Kate (how often do I say that). Talk about the environment and alternative energy is one thing but we won't make real progress until we align our nightmare bureacracy and red tape into something that's actually flowing in the right direction.

They are not narrow minded. They are focused. They would steal every nickel of ours if they could, and p*ss it away on boondoggles, while a significant portion sticks to them.

Trudeau started this kleptocracy. Others keep it alive.

Canada continues to slide into being an economic has been.

Liars and thieves. It's not narrow mindedness. It's an inadequate governance structure under which we are unable to kick the a**es and make it permanently felt.

He is wasting his time contacting the feds. Harper "spoke" for government on the Income Trust fiasco, when companies tried to avoid taxes and downloaded the income (and taxes) to the unitholders. Even though the unitholders were paying more in taxes from these investments, the feds stepped in to assess tax on the corporations doing this, all for tax fairness of course. The resulting drop in value penalized investors holding units by requiring companies to revert to the tax paying corporate structure, and making sure that "they" got their taxes paid before the unitholders got their income. They are entitled to their entitlments, remember that. They are the boss here, not individuals or coroporations, and we all are indentured serfs to government at all levels. That was the message I got. This farmer got the message that if you try to arrange things in your favour (the individual), sorry not according to government. Crooks, cheats, liars and thieves.

See, folks: the left is hypocritical. They demand we "do something drastic" to reduce CO2 emissions to prevent, what they believe to be, the end of the world. Then they turn around while goosestepping and shout sharply, "You have done something good! You will pay for that! No one is allowed to use their brains, own money nor hard work to get a better life without paying a tax for it! Hand over your money or go to jail!"

Liberals like Minister Duncan make me see red. They're so fascist, so greedy, so hypocritical.

This proves a lot. That they really don't care about "global warming" and that they'll tax pretty much anything... what'll they tax next? I'm sure they'll think of something. Maybe whenever it's nice outside, we'll have to pay a tax, as when it's nice outside, it's a "benefit" in so many ways... and liberals don't want people to enjoy life unless it's a type of "enjoyment" sanctioned by the left and paid for by other people!

Grrr.

Here is what he needs to do. Dig under the windmill, install small wheels under each corner and then claim it is not an improvement but rather a machine. This approach would have also saved him the building permit tax.

If he had bought a tractor with a generator or just a diesel generator it would not be an improvement.

That would be an interesting cost study: set-up a diesel generator for farm purposes (less fuel tax) to see if it is less expensive than monopoly electricity. In the U.S.A. of people home-growing ethanol (hooch) for vehicle fuel (need state permission since otherwise illegal to brew), saving fuel tax; there are kits available.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:QnhB8TZX-ZwJ:www.sierraclub.ca/national/green-power/ontario/green-report-card-full.pdf+Ontario+windmill+owner+penalized+by+government&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca
There has been some progress in improving the water rental and property tax regime applicable to new hydraulic generation. The previous property tax regime penalized the capital intensive nature of hydro-powered generation.The current proposal would base taxes on market value of the power produced and would give a partial tax holiday tonew hydraulic generation for up to ten years. Unfortunately the proposal does not address other forms of renewable generation. Ontario continues to assess property tax against windmill towers while exempting the transmission towersthat deliver coal and nuclear-fired power.

Here is one story on the home-brew ethanol:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Business/story?id=1902339&page=1

Truthsayer:

The assessment office (actually MPAC) didn't make a mistake. I tried to post details (that post disappeared) that Greg Sorbarra, the Minister of Finance in Ontario, instructed MPAC to treat wind turbines as a power generator. It appears MPAC is just following policy. If you check their website, MPAC has a specific category for wind turbines.

Onterrible; mired deeply in the klepto-patronage swamp and just lovin' the stink...obviously this man was not a friend of the McSquinty Tammany hall or special dispensation would have been ordered for his improvement....maybe time to go beat up some more egg, poultry or dairy farmers who resent the marketing board fees...Pull some dramatic police raids...charge them with breaking a myriad of insipid kleptocratic regulatory laws, then steal their land in fine and tax assement and profit on the auction....shake 'em down, they're getting too upity with this "property rights" stuff.

Yep that's how much a provincially-filed deed is worth in Ontary-ary-ario...only as good as the extortion extracted to keep it.

Librano/McSquinty creedo:

If it moves fast, tax it to a stand-still.

If it moves slow, tax it every inch of its journey to insolvency, then steal what's left.

If it doesn't move at all, tax it for dying and taking up space.

On the other end of the Librano leviathan that deficates the money taken from these "spoils" pf the kleptocrat's war on the middle class, we have the various partisan patronage "feeders" laping up the laviathan's rich guano.... the rich guano is needed to feed and expand the public sector unions who deliver Liberal votes.

I figure the Caledonia dispute would have ended in lucrative settlement a year ago if reserve Mohawks were capable of delivering liberal votes.

just biz as usual in the klepto-kingdom of Onterrible.

As sad as the govmit hypocracy on this issue is, there is a much, MUCH bigger folly surrounding wind power.

".. Wind energy is unreliable for the simple reason that wind is unreliable, unpredictable, and intermittent. That is, more than 70% of the time more reliable sources are needed in its place." Minnesotans For Sustainability.

:..As is being learned in England, Denmark, Germany, US, and elsewhere, wind farms also add to transmission system instabilities. The windmills can actually reduce the reliability of the transmission system, because of the need not only to match loads with variable energy generation, but the additional needs to control for both system voltage and frequency stabilities. These costs are typically not included either in such analyses.", M for S.

//www.mnforsustain.org/windpower_false_promises_fox_m_0505.htm

Does Ontario Hydro, Manitoba Hydro, ect put up their own money to build wind farms ?? I don't beleive so.

They "let others in on the deal" to take the profits ? Why ? Could it be that the whole WP scam is only feasible if the taxpayers keep pumping in the money ??

Wind power costs 2 to 3 times conventional.

When, not if, the subsidies stop, someone (so-called green-investors, suckers) will be left holding the bag. And the land owner, often farmers, will be left with a junk pile that will cost a bundle to dismantle.

One sure fire way to see a Wind Power promoter hit the road is to ask him for a decommision bond.

Dr. Fruit Fly will be "Mach 1 before clearing the tower" when he hears about this insult to his beloved Giaia.

I have thought for some time that a good use of wind power is to pump water uphill, such as on the Niagara Escarpment. Storage of potential energy. Then use the hydraulic on the way back down. Stores the energy during times of low demand. Not totally efficient, but, has dampening merits.

All this talk about wind power, I tell ya it leaves you breathless!

Windfall tax.

Hmmm. At my last MPAC hearing they told me they based assessments on equivalent properties. So do they have that many farms in the area with windmills to compare to? Otherwise how would they justify an increase?

Why would you want a stupid windmill anyway, coal produces all the power we'll ever need.

If the windmill was on the Niagra Escarpment then the Escarpment commission would also demand that it be painted colours as recommended by the commission.
*the commission tells farmers up here on the penninsula what color their roof or barn shall be.

meanwhile . . . ya gotta love the Czechs

Jan Lopatka
REUTERS

5:38 a.m. March 21, 2007

PRAGUE – Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Wednesday that fighting global warming has turned into a a 'religion' that replaced the ideology of communism and threatens to clip basic freedoms.

The right-wing president, a free-market champion, wrote to the U.S. Congress that adopting tough environmental policies to fight climate change would have destructive impact on national economies.

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'Communism has been replaced by the threat of an ambitious environmentalism,' Klaus wrote in response to questions from the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The U.S. House Subcommittee for Energy and Air Quality was due to hold a hearing on climate on Wednesday with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, who sees global warming as a key challenge, and Danish sceptic Bjorn Lomborg, who says governments should focus on fight disease and hunger instead.

Gore, who won an Oscar for 'best documentary' for his 'An Inconvenient Truth' movie on climate change, has led a global warming awareness drive in the United States, the world's largest source of gases believed to cause it.

Klaus, who does not hold many executive powers but is by far the most popular politician in the ex-communist Czech Republic, has taken a decisively opposite stance on the issue.

Klaus said poor nations would also be hurt by efforts to impose limits and standards on emissions of gases believed to cause global warming.

'They will not be able to absorb new technological standards required by the anti-greenhouse religion, their products will have difficulty accessing the developed markets, and as a result the gap between them and the developed world will widen,' he wrote.

'This ideology preaches earth and nature and under the slogans of their protection – similarly to the old Marxists – wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world,' he added.

U.S. President George W. Bush opposes mandatory caps on heat-trapping gases. He pulled the United States out in 2001 of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Klaus wrote that it was futile to fight against phenomena like higher solar activity or the change of ocean currents, and called for avoiding wasting taxpayers money on what he called doubtful projects.

'No government action can stop the world and nature from changing. Therefore, I disagree with plans such as the Kyoto Protocol or similar initiatives, which set arbitrary targets requiring enormous costs without realistic prospects for the success of these measures,' he said.

And here I was just about to install one of these things.

Personally I think there's a more fundamental principle involved. If you improve your private property with your own discretionary income why is the government entitled to a piece of the action?

That that improvement can be taxed in spite of it being beneficial to the population at large is just another kick in the teeth.

The only compensation is that there will be an election in this province soon.

The problem is that this guy dared build an environmentally friendly device without channeling his money through the green lobby.

The proper procedure is to give your money to the enviro-commie watermelons and they will use that money to protest and fly themselves to exotic locals and demand that the government raise taxes and destroy the economy while spending hords of money not solving the problem.

That way, the farmer won't have to spend money upgrading his farm as he'd have gone bankrupt and the new state owners would drive it into the ground.

Jeff,

Too late for Woschnigg, but just keep these things, wind gens or solar panels, portable in design.

Once you set something in poured concrete it becomes taxable. A permanent improvement.

Portable is non-taxable. = TG

A lot of people here are trying to figure out how they can do (tax) this...and how can it be avoided.

I respectfully suggest that this is an exercise in futility. Government wants your money. They need your money. And they need the flow to be constant. If everybody did what this farmer did and the governments (at all levels) didn't pounce right away, then they would risk revolution. I'm not trying to be dramatic...think about it. If you (and the general population at large) go for any considerable period of time having more disposable income than you had previously and THEN the government takes it away, you are more likely to get ticked than if they keep your income down consistently.

As long as they keep the choke chain on full-time, the people will remain fragmented, disorganized and docile. You always here liberals talk about people paying "their fair share." What is that exactly? Answer: It's how much of your money they can take without sparking a revolution.

Before the 20th century, revolutions (including the more minor tax revolts) happened generally whenever the tax rate exceeded 30%. That doesn't happen anymore. Did you ever wonder why?

It's because they do it in a more subtle and persistent manner than they used to in "the old days." When you want to save for retirement, what do the experts tell you? They tell you to automatically deduct your RRSP (or whatever savings vehicle) from your pay. Then you don't see the money and you don't think about it.

Governments learned that principle a long time ago. And that's why they tax income at the source. It's the same tactic. If income tax were collected by a system where you got you were given a check for your full pay and then, every month or so, you actually had to write a check to the CRA or have the taxman show up at your door to collect your "fair share", we would have had a revolution long ago.

Everyone in this country knows and hates the GST. But the reason we hate it so much is because we see it being charged everytime we buy something. In Australia (about the same time the GST was introduced here) they had a very similar 8% tax added onto their goods and services. No public outrage at all. The reason is because, in Australia, all taxes are hidden taxes. When the price goes up on a good or service, you don't know if it happened because the actual cost of the good/service went up or because the government is screwing you more. Everyone stays nice and docile and obedient.

No matter what they say to the contrary, governments can NEVER lose a source of income once they have it. This farmer was threatening to create a trend whereby people end up giving less of their money to the government. This cannot be allowed. That's why he is facing punishment. Otherwise, he would be saving money...and telling his friends.

This is interesting guys are running around here (Lambton County)getting farmers to sign contracts for wind generators, I haven't heard much about property tax increases (yet).
One dairy farm near here just put up a used wind generator from Holland, as far as it generating electricity when the power goes out I'm of the understanding it goes off line and quits pushing power into the grid and a diesel generator takes over.
Its a pretty crappy deal when a private windmill takes some strain off of Ontario's burdened electrical grid, and they get financially raped for it.It's a wonder some of the idiots in Toronto, and some of the local councils don't walk backwards 24/7.

...just wondering if Max voted Liberal.

Hmmm.

again duh

"Shaken's" comment has merit (use windmills to re-pump water to the high side of Niagra falls) Windpower generation is so un predicable and usually produces no power when needed and excess when not needed. eg: hot summer days when air conditioning needed there is no wind (that is why it is so hot) On the coldest winter days the weather pressure systems are stable (no wind). Places where wind power works best are Manitoba where we have huge Hydro dams. When windpower production is high , we slow the water flows at the dam to "save the water" for another day. This method can keep the grid running on a constant voltage. Windpower on its own fails every time unless batteries are used or water energy is stored. As far as the farmer who finds his windmill is now being taxed....wait a few days and I am sure you will find the Suzuki foundation will send him their carbon tax credits (thru Kyoto of course). Right David Suzuki ? Right Elizabeth May ? Right Al Gore ? You folks are right on top of all this and will assist the farmer in his fight to go green. We await your help !!

Using wind power to pump water back up a hydro dam would only be feasible if the hydro dam was often running out of water. If the expensive WP water was to just run back down the spillway, what's the point ??

local lieberal mpp just got faxed a copy of THAT one.

wasnt MPAC the great privatized thingy dreampt up in mikey harris' CONSERVATIVE provincial govt?

Woschnigg has only himself to blame, in true copist blame the victim syndrome fashion he shouldacoulda researched property tax regulations or at least started with a simple phone call.

the whole scheme is not about energy or CO2 , its about money and taxes. this is just someone getting an early dose of it.

In Calgary , they say ride the wind and supposedly buy all the LRT power from wind farms, they dont of course,it just an allocation. what they dont tell you is that they bought the wrong kind of powered LRT cars, AC instead of DC so they have to ride around with giant inverters on the tops of the cars,making the system another 10% more inefficient.so calgary transit buys more expensive power and wastes it.

All this babble about wind power is so far mostly just that, babble. After all, it is a technology that has been around for hundreds of years. If we could really effectively power our homes or our cities or our cars with it, I think we would have by now.

Conflicting agendas on the front.
I've heard of a movement in resistance to windmills because they bring property value down. Perhaps the difference is this:
On the grid, a company leasing your property, and you don't own it means decrease in property value.
Independent ,resourceful and industrious enough to have your own, you get burnt with taxes.
Only in Canada,eh? Pity!

I don't believe it.

His property probably hasn't been assessed in years and the increase in the MV is probably due primarily to a rise in property values, and not just his windmill.

I do believe we need an old fashioned tax revolt, just to remind certain elites where the REAL money comes from.

Failing that. The only way to salt these leeches off of our collective bodies, is a full bore split from the dippers. In the honorable tradition of the American Revolution.

How about throwing Tim Horton coffee's off the CN Tower in Toronto as a starting point, all participants dressed as Don Cherry? Mask included free.

They have forgotten whose money they so blithly play with.

As an example, Edmonton had 20,000,000 left over from overtaxation. Did they give it back? Hell no!!! They raised property taxes 6% while giving themselves a 13 % wage hike, more pension, a new car a year plus free gas. Now they want more power to tax. lol lol lol

johndoe124:

Personally I think there's a more fundamental principle involved. If you improve your private property with your own discretionary income why is the government entitled to a piece of the action?

A kupee doll for you. You hit it spot on. The whole issue is about protected property rights, & the fact Canada has NONE.

Constitutionally or otherwise. Your allowed to trade land you have bought, all else is owned by the State, including mineral rights, or the fact they can just take it away. If they deem something more useful should be there, or a development can produce more tax for city hall. Compensation is still required, (For how long one wonders?) but its usually below the real price of the land.

The rest are symptoms of this lack of secure property rights. If you don't own any land in any Nation you really are not considered a full citizen. Its why our forefathers came here just for that reason. Land ownership is a basic freedom now being denied both here & in the States under the banner of higher taxes from people who do. In the old day’s to even vote you had to be a property owner.

Its why population is down. Young people cannot even get a starter home on two incomes. So no kids.

Social mobility becomes denied. Its insidious that we can only in effect rent what the government owns, but only have the option to sell this floating property to someone else while the State taxes you silly for any improvements.

Another con , which in the end will come back to bite them severely. Our Ancestors would have picked up a gun by now at how all out rights have been abrogated by bylaw, courts, or Polities running this Country into the ground. That we have allowed these vultures to denude us bit by bit of our human status into that of a child is another consequence of having no home. We end up relying on the very thieves who steal from us to survive while they continue to fleece us until scared.

The fellow who did this just revealed how cynical & depraved these masqueraders for green truly are. They don't give a fig about the environment. Its the money stupid!!!! It always has been. This shows em up for the hypocrites they are. If not the con of a money transfer scam they have devised for even more money. While trampling individual liberty in the name of this faux religion of enviro-fantasy.

Man are people gullible.

this may be folklore, but in my formative years the story was a family friend built a shed on 'is propaddy aaaaaaand....

got taxed for it as an improvement.

yars later when the t'ing was a redundant eyesore, 'e knocks it down aaaaaaaaand ......

you guessed it, taxes bumped up agin for improving da propaddy.......

revdream highlights evidence of MY position expressed earlier that the 'freedom loving west' is in fact DRIFTING towards soviet style totalitarianism; it can be economic as well as political and social.

the communist party elites even had specific -traffic lanes criss crossing moscow for the EXCLUSIVE use.

tax tax tax, ya, just another loophole in a 'capitalistic' economy that allows da gubbamint to own everything in fact if not in name.

tax the snot out of the earnings and when its too much to bear, then tax the snot out of the 'capital gains' when the business and assets are sold.

etc etc.

naturally the righties here all deny this.

Across the widest spectre of the blogosphere and MSM there's been a public outcry regarding the failure of Budget 2007 to institute broad-based personal and business tax reductions. To allay and/or stem the likely backlash at election time, I'm recommending interested readers visit the Conservative Party site and request a THREE PERCENTAGE POINT tax reduction applied across the board to personal and business taxes. That they redress the oversight in the present budget, initiate last minute amendment which would glean the widest support. Simply go to the website and respectfully state your request. Canada, leader of the G8-, resource rich powerhouse, enjoying economy that now rivals China's, is uniquely positioned to provide the long awaited tax relief in the amount of a THREE PERCENTAGE POINT REDUCTION. Something the Liberals failed to provide over the many years they were obsessed with "brown paper bags" exchanges (ADSCAM). Our financial house is in order for this appropriate, last minute request. Budget goes for final vote on Monday. Posting here because of widest readership that visits this site. I'm sure it was an oversight in an excellent budget that is now regretted. As citizens we can support our well positioned and respected Tory gov't. Its time has come. TAX RELIEF THAT IS.

robertbollocks:

revdream highlights evidence of MY position expressed earlier that the 'freedom loving west' is in fact DRIFTING towards soviet style totalitarianism; it can be economic as well as political and social.

I haven’t a clue where you got that idea. In fact I think the opposite. We fell oppressed out here because of socialism being forced on us by the East. The ant-Capitalist laws made to shackle us.

The fact we have a passel of lefties on City council will be resolved next October. Not to there liking I can assure you. Most people I know who voted this mayor in now kick themselves. Including me.

Where all in favor of free enterprise, its the East who keep passing laws that stop trade. Invent crisis. This is why the next election will either be Alberta's last in Canada or a Harper Majority.

The West Robert is about to crack open, unless things change. We are not Europeans but North Americans

bollocks:

"the communist party elites even had specific -traffic lanes criss crossing moscow for the EXCLUSIVE use..."

Uh-huh. That's very informative, but we're talking about a property tax question, not Eurasian traffic management.

Also, you're blaming the west for this story? Really? Have your little pink pills rolled under the stove again? I'll have the nurse run by and give you a fresh bottle.

"freedom loving west"

as in the developed world, you know, the 'western' nations which includes all of WESTern europe ie WEST of and including the former land mass know as WEST Germany.

and britain and canuckistan and us of a and oh, places like iceland fer instance.

you people are apparently far too self absorbed to have it dawn on you I wasnt referring to a much more precise and smaller geographic location, ie prairies and BC.

taxing the bejeezuz out of the citizens, boondoggle gun legislation, patriot act excesses etc etc. the WEST specifically us of a IS drifting to totalitarianism in baby steps.

tax tax tax -> totalitarianism -> exclusive traffic lanes.

follow the carefully laid out arrows.

Bryceman put his finger on it. Once a government has a revenue stream they're not going to give it up. I was watching proposals in California and Oregon to somehow impose a tax per mile of driving. This I found infuriating as three years ago I bought a Honda Insight which gives me 65mpg on my commute between a town in Vermont and a town in New York. The round trip is about 90 miles. If the Californicator proposal were adopted here just why did I both saving all that gas? The problem for the Feds, VT and NY is that I am paying a lot less in gas taxes too -- hence the CA notion and unfortunately many, if not most, of our liberal atrocities originate in CA, especially where automobiles are concerned.

Sorry, gotta call BS on part of the story.

Anybody do the math on those taxes?

That's a 5+% tax rate.

Is that likely?

I don't deny he'd get hit by an increase in taxes but a rate that high?

Residential rates surrounding Guelph are only about 1.28%

Farm rates are 1/4 of res rates except for the house and 1 acre of land.

Industrial and commercial? Harder to find.

Perhaps they're that high. I doubt it though. It appears somebody is a little spun up about this and exaggerating his taxes to garner sympathy. Unecessary in my opinion as ANY tax increase is wrong for something like this.

Regardless, it IS stupid to go green and then get taxed up the ass on the back end.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

MT

MistahTibbs:

Re: Industrial and commercial tax rates - it took me 15 seconds to find that for the City of Guelph, the industrial tax rate (total) is 5.267539%.

http://guelph.ca/living.cfm?itemid=46210&smocid=1817

John B.

D'oh! ™

Hmm. So is his property industrial or residential?

Perhaps it IS industrial.

MT

Back in the 1970s Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money". It still applies, and Bryceman nailed it.

Like I said, keep it movable, removable, and or portable and thus tax - exempt. = TG

A year or two ago, Gregg Sorbara (Minister of Finance, Ontario) introduced a policy concerning the taxation of wind turbines. I believe the farm is classed by MPAC as a farm and the turbine is separately classed as "industrial". As I mentioned in an earlier post, MPAC has a separate class for "wind turbines" but MPAC doesn't set the tax rates, the municipalities do. I have done site leasing in the past for cellular companies and one of the clauses in their agreements was the telephone company would pay for any increase in property taxes. That's a pretty standard clause and I fully expect the various wind energy companies have the same clause.

I think one of the problems here is that a small wind turbine like this one (80 kilowatts is small for the industry) are relatively inefficient in comparison to the 1,800 kilowatt commercial installations. It looks like the assessment is all out of whack relative to the value of the electricity produced.

Regards,
John

Whats truly amazing about these ecoweenies is that while SIERRA CLUB,GREENPEACE, and WORLD WILDLIFE FUND support wind turbines the NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY opposes them becuase they kill birds too many birds SCREW YOU TREE HUGGERS IM COMMING AND I CANT BE STOPPED SQUAWK SQUAWK

Sounds as bad as the justification toronto hydro is giving for raising hydro rates here. Apparently people conserved too much energy last year and the drop in usage meant Toronto hydro missed out on anticipated money. So to thank us for saving hydro they are raising our rates to make up the difference.