Re: Social enterprises targeted for tax (News, Nov. 9).
I think it is monstrous of city council to even think about taxing the social enterprises named in your front page article. As the author correctly points out: “in many cases the social enterprise helps to fund charitable work both on and off site.”
Further, any funds realized through any quasi-commercial activities are ploughed back into funding the free or subsidized services so badly needed by their clients.
These services are provided by both volunteers and salaried employees.
Any taxation would likely result in a reduction in services, producing a void which would likely have to be filled by the city, probably at much greater cost than the $216,637 in revenue expected to be realized with the tax.
I would doubt that amount of money would provide for much more than four additional workers on city salaries and benefits. I can’t see them producing the same results. How crazy is that?
Contrast that with the $90,000 cost of the Langley Street loo in the same issue and the annual salary costs of its maintenance by city workers. True, it provides much needed relief to the bladders of numerous nocturnal inebriates, and the olfactory sense of pedestrians and neighbours. But I have no doubt that this facility falls far short of the services provided by any one of those selected for possible taxation.
William Davis
Victoria